The Raven
by Narsil
Summary: The inevitable finally happens, and Ranma is killed during one of the fights - and thanks to Genma, things get even worse. Then SHE is given the opportunity to return the pain on those responsible... Rate for death, violence and situations, NOT sex.
1. The End?

**Warning: this story is about as dark as I get! Its "M" rating is because of violence and situations, **_**not**_** because of sex.** Though it will have a happy ending of a sort, getting there involves a lot of death and pain. This first episode is inspired by the opening of Tuisto's _Daimakaicho Ranma_ (an unfinished and apparently dead story available on fanfiction dot net) and much of the middle of the story by J. O. Barr's _The Crow_ (simultaneously one of the most powerful, most painful, and most violently brutal graphic novel I've ever read). So if you enjoy good eventually triumphing but paying a very high price for that victory, enjoy. If not, you might want to give this story a pass. Also note that Ranma will be female throughout the story.

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

"Bakah!"

A dark-haired, pigtailed boy sighed as he sailed out of the house and splashed down into the koi pond, instantly losing several inches and a number of pounds. _Well, at least her aim has gotten pretty good even if her temper hasn't,_ the now redheaded girl thought to herself as she pulled herself up onto the rocks around the pond. Pulling off her shirt Ranma wrung it out as her dark-haired fiancée stormed out of the house behind her.

"And when are you going to learn some feminine modesty?" Akane shouted, and Ranma shrugged as she pulled her still-damp shirt back on over her generous chest.

From the doorway, brown-haired Nabiki chuckled. "About the time she starts wearing bras," she jibed, and Ranma scowled.

"Yeah, right, like _that's_ ever going to happen," she retorted, and the middle Tendo nodded.

"Exactly," she said, stepping out of the doorway so that Ranma's parents could join them in the yard.

"Boy, apologize to your fiancée immediately," Genma stated firmly.

"For what, not letting her poison me this time?" Ranma shouted. "If you think her cooking's so good, _you_ eat it!"

"Son, it is not seemly for a man to show such disrespect for his fiancée," Nodoka said with a frown, and Ranma rolled her eyes.

"Mom, _cockroaches_ can't stomach Akane's cooking, what make ya think _I_ can?" she asked rhetorically, and Akane seemed to glow red as her hammer rematerialized in her hand and she started toward her fiancé.

Ranma sighed and braced herself, ready for another trip on Air Akane, when suddenly a purple-haired, voluptuous figure appeared on the dojo compound wall, dropped inside, and without a word charged straight for the hammer-wielding girl. A chúi whirled unerringly toward the side of Akane's head, but Ranma got there first, diving into her fiancée and the two falling and rolling to the side as she kicked out and knocked the chúi to the side.

"Shampoo, what the hell are ya playin' at?" Ranma shouted. "That would a' killed her!"

"That point," Shampoo growled, circling around as Ranma bounced to her feet. "Shampoo through playing games."

Ranma paled. _She's dead serious,_ she thought, then winced slightly at her choice of words. "Akane," she hissed as the dark-haired girl rose to her feet, "get over by my pop, _now_!"

Akane glared at the smaller redhead. "Ranma, how many times have I told you, stay out of my fights! I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, right!" Ranma retorted. "Listen, Akane. she's serious this time, get over there, pop will protect you if ..."

"Ranma, you destroyer of women!" came a shout from another wall of the compound as a long-haired Chinese boy wearing coke-bottle glasses dropped down inside the compound, a sword in each hand. "Today you die!"

_Oh, great,_ Ranma complained to herself. _The only thing needed to make this the perfect day is ..._ A section of yet another compound wall exploded, revealing a large muscular boy dressed in disheveled, travel-stained clothing and wearing a yellow and black bandanna. _I just _had_ to push my luck,_ Ranma grumbled to herself as Ryoga stalked into the compound.

"Ranma, because of you I've seen hell. Prepare to die!" Ryoga sneered, snatching off a bandanna and shaking it out straight as Mousse moved to the side and one of his swords disappeared.

"Yeah, I've heard it all be — whoops!" Ranma started, then grabbed Akane again and rolled the two of them out of the way as both of Shampoo's chúi smashed down where her fiancée had been, kicking Shampoo's legs out from underneath her in the process. Ranma bounced up to a crouch, glancing back and forth between Ryoga and Mousse, then leaned back as a chúi flashed across in front of her.

Behind Ranma, Akane rose to her knees, her anger tunneling her vision to to the red pigtail a few feet away. "Ranma," she screamed, "I told you to stay out of my FIGHTS!" And her hammer swung up toward her fiancé's back.

Ranma heard the shout behind her, sensed the swing, and rose to avoid it as she watched Shampoo angle to the side for another shot at Akane, then all her air gushed out of her lungs as two hammerblows to her breasts knocked her back a step. Looking down, she saw a pair of Mousse's largest throwing knives buried to the hilt in her chest. _Where's the pain?_ she thought as she turned slightly to look into the rage-filled eyes of her fiancée — and a bandanna whirled across her throat and washed the vision away in a spray of red and Mousse was there swords flashing and the ground was rising up toward her face...

/\

Akane wiped at her eyes furiously. What ... what _was_ this ... what was _happening_? Her eyes finally clear she looked around at everyone on all sides, frozen as stiff as so many statues. Then, seeing the direction of their gaze, looked down at the ground in front of her. Was that _Ranma_ lying face down in front of her? But ... but there was so much red ... the same red, she realized, that literally soaked her front.

Jerkily, Genma moved away from the door to the house toward his child. "Ranma, stop playing around!" he shouted. "This is no way to act in a serious fight!" He reached down and grasped Ranma's shoulder and flipped her over, then fell back as the last strands of flesh holding her head to her body tore and it rolled away to Akane's feet, while her intestines gushed out of the massive slit across her stomach.

Akane dropped to her knees and grabbed the head as she heard Nabiki emptying her stomach of its contents behind her, then looked up as an apparition faded into sight in front of her. He was an obese humanoid figure, slightly taller than she was, with reddened, diseased looking skin and a huge, engorged phallus. Looking at her, he smiled, showing jagged teeth as a long tongue snaked out and she jerked back to avoid its touch, then gasped as she realized that bound up in one of the two bunches of long tentacles that he had instead of arms was Ranma! Girl-Ranma, naked, and oddly see-through, but definitely Ranma, staring at her as she struggle uselessly to break free, one tentacle across her mouth, eyes begging for help.

The demonic visitor turned his gaze from her toward a white-faced, shaking Genma. "Really, Genma, I was beginning to think you'd actually won our little contest! It didn't seem like anything could kill Ranma, and the way that he did all the fighting he could in his male form, I was afraid if he _was_ killed I'd get a male soul I'd have to trade away. But it all worked out in the end, and my little friend" — with a nod to his groin — "gets a new playmate after all." With a malicious smile, he added, "I hope the yamasenken worked out as well for you as your first-born child's soul will for me."

Then, the fat demon faded out of sight with his prize even as Akane shot to her feet and charged forward, swinging uselessly at empty air. She whirled around swinging aimlessly, shouting for the demon to show himself, then finally stopped, panting. Looking around she found herself almost alone in the yard, Ryoga just vanishing through another fresh hole in the wall and Genma standing over his child's corpse cursing Ranma for a weakling and a failure, and from the doorway to the house she could hear Nodoka's shaky voice: "Hello, police? I need ... I need to report a training accident."

Akane's scream of agony stripped her throat raw.

* * *

I was going to put off posting this story until I'd finished it then post it all at once, but it's been almost a month since I last posted a chapter and will be at least another week before I finish the last one for this story. So instead, I'm going to post one chapter of this story daily until it's complete. That's eighteen chapters at this point, so by the time I get to that point I'll certainly have the last chapter finished.

And yes, this chapter is a little short — it was one of my earlier chapters, I would never write one this short today.

Author's note in my forum for this story/chapter.


	2. The Daimakaicho

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Hild smiled to herself as she stalked through Niflheim's central office complex with two burly black-skinned subordinates at her heels, one carrying a massive sword strapped across his back and the other carrying a large canister, as office workers blanched at the lack of expression on her face and busied themselves at their desks, attention fixed on their work. A smiling Hild was scary, a scowling Hild was worse, but an expressionless Hild was a nightmare beyond belief, and _someone_ was in for a great deal of pain.

After several minutes terrorizing the workforce by meandering through the complex, she turned toward the office of a mid-level manager and strode through without breaking her stride as one of the two demons accompanying her stepped ahead to open the door. Inside, a small, pale-skinned, bat-winged, hairless male looked up from his computer terminal and Hild was impressed as his only reaction as he rose to his feet was a slight flinch.

"Mistress Hild, this is a surprise! What can I do for you?" he asked, then doubled over with a scream as Hild stepped up and planted a fist deep in his groin. She reached down and picked up the writhing demon by his throat and casually held him at arm's length as she turned to look at her companion with the sword. "Trethgar, this will be your office until you get this mess is cleaned up. The usual rules for guilt and innocence apply, but be ... creative ... when it comes to the guilty. _Enjoy_ yourself."

Trethgar smiled broadly. "But of course, Mistress," he replied, only to shrink when she frowned.

"Just don't let your enthusiasm for your work lead you to draw it out, there will be other assignments waiting for you when this one is finished," Hild warned, and he nodded hastily.

"Of course, Mistress!" he agreed, and Hild turned her attention back to demon now struggling in her grip and pounding ineffectually on her arm.

"As for you, Histval, did you really think your diversion of souls from their assigned destinations for your little group's personal amusements wouldn't be noticed? So, what will I do with you?" She stared into Histval's eyes for several long minutes as he continued to struggle, then tightened her grip and _twisted_, and with a wet crack Histval's neck snapped like a twig. Tossing the twitching body against a wall, Hild stepped back and crossed her arms across her chest and waited.

For several minutes nothing happened, then the translucent form of Histval's soul slowly rose from his corpse, and the demon with the canister stepped forward, twisted open the top and pointed it at the figure. Histval's form wavered like mist caught in a breeze and drifted toward the open canister, and he desperately tried to grab at the wall, the desk, the edge of the canister, but his hands simply passed through every surface and he was quickly sucked into the canister and out of sight. The demon holding the canister replaced the top and looked expectantly at his Mistress.

Hild stared thoughtfully into space for a long moment. "I think … we'll start with some sensory deprivation, call it three months. Then … you've seen the report of what Histval's little group did with their diverted souls?" The demon nodded, and Hild smiled. "Why don't you get some friends together and show Histval what it's like on the receiving end? Say, the same amount of time his victims suffered — consecutively."

Now the demon's nod turned eager. "Certainly, thank you, Mistress!" he gushed, and her smile turned into a laugh.

"Don't thank me, you've earned it," she said. "Now, back to headquarters."

/oOo\

Hild's secretary looked up with a smile as Hild strode into her office anteroom. "Welcome back, Mistress," she said. "Did you enjoy your little excursion?"

"Of course, Angie," Hild replied airily, smiling fondly as she walked toward the door to her inner sanctum, "no better way to end the day than seeing to it that someone gets what he so richly deserves. Anything come up while I was having my fun?"

"Actually, yes, one of the green-flagged files sent an alert."

Hild's fond smile vanished as her gaze snapped back to Angie. "Which file?" she asked.

"Ranma Saotome's," Angie replied, watching her mistress intently, and Hild carefully refused to flinch.

"I see," she said thoughtfully. "So what happened to set off the flag?"

"He, or rather she, is dead — killed by two of her rivals. Rothgan's already claimed her," Angie informed her, and Hild nodded even as an _Oh, shit!_ reverberated through the back of her mind.

"You've forwarded the updated file to my inbox?" At Angie's nod Hild resumed striding toward her office. "Very well, I am not to be disturbed until further notice."

/\

Hild finished reading the updates to the file of one Xian Pu of the Joketsuzoku, keyed it for red-flagged status, then leaned back and for long minutes stared unseeing at the one-way window that looked out over her jagged and fiery domain. Finally, she rose to her feet and walked to the wall to the left of the window between two bookcases, traced a large oval with a fingernail, then stepped back and incanted lengthily in a language dead since before the world's creation. For a long moment the air in her sanctum seemed to freeze, then the traced oval went midnight black and Hild stepped through it and vanished.

/oOo\

Kami-sama glanced up in mid-sentence as an alarm only he could notice sounded, then stood. Instantly the Valkyries nervously sitting beside him leaped to their feet, but he simply smiled beneficently and waved them toward the door that had appeared a few feet away, hanging in empty air. "I am afraid that something has come up," he said. "Begin your assignments as discussed, and return tomorrow at this time." The two nodded and knelt, then hurried to the door and were gone, the door soundlessly vanishing with them.

With their disappearance, the magnificent villa in whose courtyard they been sitting wavered and shrank to a simple cottage. Kami-sama shook his head ruefully, opened the front door, and stepped inside and walked to the drawing room to welcome his guest.

Hild looked up from filling a large tumbler from a bottle she'd just taken from the liquor cabinet, and Kami-sama gently shook his head as he walked over to her and took the bottle from her slightly shaking hand and finished pouring before filling a small glass for himself and returning the bottle to the cabinet. Turning to find Hild sitting on the couch and gulping her drink, he sighed and sat down next to her with an arm across her shoulders. "That bad?" he asked gently, and Hild shuddered.

"Ranma's dead, and female," she said curtly. "Xian Pu and Mu Tse got tired of waiting and decided to take matters into their own hands, and Ku Lon will undoubtedly ignore the implications in order to protect her heir. Rothgan will be enjoying his new prize right now, before hanging her up on his wall with the rest until the next time he gets the urge — which, knowing him, will be in a few hours." Kami-sama winced and tightened his hug. "You hadn't heard?" Hild asked, and he shook his head.

"No," he said, "I've been discussing some Valkyrie observations of some outlying Islamist enclaves. I believe they have outlived their usefulness, and will make fine targets for your Furies."

Hild nodded. "Good, more grist for my mill. I'll _enjoy_ seeing them show up, unlike —" She choked up, and Kami-sama took the mostly empty tumbler from her hand and set it on a side table, then pulled her onto his lap and into a close embrace as she broke down.

"I know," he murmured. "But at least most of those that show up in your realm because of their parents' bargains quickly figure out they really shouldn't be there and move on."

"But why do some of them have to be so _stubborn_ about it?" she almost wailed, and he just shook his head.

"It's that core of stubbornness that helps make them what they are," he said, and Hild nodded jerkily against his shoulder.

"I know, and I suspect I'll be getting a Fury out of it, once Ranma's had some time to build up her hatred, but still …"

For a time they just sat, then finally Hild sat up with a sigh and got up from Kami-sama's lap. "I'd better be getting back," she said. "I'm supposed to be in my inner sanctum, and my secretary is getting suspicious — I'm going to have to put her back out in the field and get a new one fairly soon. But, can I come back tonight? Not for sex, not while Ranma's … I'd just like to spend the night being held."

"Of course, I shouldn't have anything coming up that would interrupt us. And it will be good to have you back for a night, whatever the circumstances. I miss you, Frigg," Kami-sama said with a gentle smile.

Hild smiled wistfully back at her husband. "And I you, Odin." Then, her face losing all expression, she walked over to the nearest wall, called up the transportation circle, and was gone.

* * *

While I normally don't give away spoilers, I thought I'd give everyone a heads up that THERE WILL BE NO RAPE SCENES FOR RANMA. The after effects, certainly, but the actual rapes will be off stage.

Yes, this one is going to be seriously Alternate Universe so far asOh, My Goddess!is concerned, or possibly Secret History, with Kami-sama and Hild working together behind the scenes. And yes, there's a reason for that beyond just thinking it would be a cool idea. One thing I've noticed is especially common in fantasy and comic book universes is that their metaphysics is based on the Manichean heresy: that Light and Dark are at war with each other, with the outcome in doubt. Understandable, of course, it certainly ramps up the dramatic tension when the stakes are that high: I remember one scene inTheFionavar Tapestry, when King Arthur (yes,theKing Arthur) asks if this is the last war, and the answer is, "It is if we lose." I'm sure any reader can name a handful of series with the same basis. But while I enjoy those stories, I find I don't care much for the underlying metaphysics. I much prefer one where the ultimate power is Good, and Evil is either an illusion or destined to fail — the dramatic tension doesn't come from the ultimate fate of the world, but rather the fate of the world here-and-now and of those individuals caught up in the struggle. So for this story, OMG! added to the mix but Hild and Kami-sama working in tandem behind the scenes, not even their closest subordinates being let in on the secret.

Thanks much for the reviews! I don't expect as many for this story, thanks to the rapid update speed, but they are always appreciated.

**one. who. reads:** Sorry, but while a good-sized chunk of this story is inspired by "The Crow," it doesn't actually cross over with it. Just as well, let the Crow have his peace after dealing with the murderers of him and his fiancée.


	3. Job Offer

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

The Daimakaicho of Niflheim sat at her desk and stared at the information on her monitor screen, as she engaged in an activity that none of her subordinates would have believed possible — dithering. Finally, she rose from her desk and strode to the large window and leaned her forehead against the one-way glass, staring unseeing out across the rugged, stony plain and river of lava flowing from the jagged mountains in the distance.

_It's been a year since Ranma arrived,_ she thought. _A whole _year_! I've known some stubborn people before, but she ... ! And Rothgan's getting worried. No, it's beyond worry, he's beginning to panic — he revels in hate and anger in his new acquisitions, enjoys breaking his "toys" to his use, turning it into fear and submission, but it just isn't happening this time and if I don't move soon Rothgan is going to do something stupid — he's already increasing how often he's ... using ... her again, apparently working on the theory that if your plan isn't working, try more of the same. Stomping on him after he crosses the line would be a pleasure, but it wouldn't do _Ranma_ much good. But if I move too soon and Ranma's newfound hate isn't strong enough or she casts too wide a net ..._

For long minutes Hild remained at the window, before finally pushing away and turning back toward to her desk. Striding back to her seat, she sat and hit the intercom button for her secretary. "Victoria, summon Trethgar, Arlonath, a couple of lackeys … and Angie, your predecessor, as soon as they can get here. We're going to be making a surprise visit."

"At once, Daimakaicho!" her secretary's tense voice came back, and Hild sighed slightly as she released the intercom button. _It'll be nice once she gets past the "incomprehensible evil" stage of being afraid of me, so she can relax a little._

/\

Followed by her five-member entourage, Hild shook her head as she strode past the cringing doorkeeper chained to her seat — the naked dark-haired, dusky-skinned woman would have been beautiful if she was cleaned of the dried, caked-on scum and washed up a bit, Rothgan must drop by occasionally.

As they strode down the hallway, the doors at the end opened and the obese Rothgan hurried through and bowed to his ultimate superior, his tentacle-arms waving nervously. "Mistress, it is a pleasure to see you!" he quavered, and Hild smiled sardonically.

"Of course it is," she replied as she walked past him and waved for him to follow. "Don't worry, I won't be here long, I'm just here to pick up the new fury you've been incubating for me."

"New fury?" Rothgan asked worriedly, and Hild's smile turned vicious.

"Of course, Ranma," she replied in apparent surprise. "You mean you _weren't_ trying to ramp her anger and hate up to Fury levels? Oh, well, I'm sure once she's adjusted to her new position she'll remember you kindly, even so." Rothgan's crimson skin faded to pink and he wavered on his feet, before pulling himself together and rushing to catch up with his visitors as they strode into what he fondly called his viewing hall.

Hild kept her expression carefully neutral as she strode along the hall, passing naked, mucked-encrusted woman after naked, muck-encrusted woman, unmoving in their niches except for their wounded, terrified eyes that followed the group as best they could. Given, most of them were there because they'd used sex as a tool in power games, or because they'd sold their souls to Rothgan for power while alive. Given, most of them didn't stay all _that_ long before getting the point and moving on. Still ...

Then a niche came into view displaying a petite redhead that was different from the rest. The nakedness was the same, as was the caked-on scum (some still drying), but there was nothing beaten about the eyes — _hers_ blazed with anger and hatred, and Hild nodded in satisfaction. "Yes, she'll do nicely," she mused, then nodded to the two lackeys that had accompanied her. "Take her down, get her cleaned up, then bring her to my sanctum." Looking up at the burly black-skinned demon to her left, she added, "Rethgar, accompany them — protect everyone from each other."

Rethgar gazed thoughtfully at the tiny human soul being removed from her niche, reached up to the sword strapped to his back and loosened it in its scabbard, and nodded. "Of course, Mistress," he rumbled, and Hild turned to her "host."

"Rothgan, thank you for your help, even if it was unintentional," she said sweetly, and the pink demon started to shake. "Now, I'm afraid there is one piece of bad news. I noticed that it's been awhile since your last audit, so Angie here" — nodding to her pale former secretary standing beside her, staring wide-eyed at the women on display — "will be correcting that oversight. I'm sure you will see that she receives full cooperation."

As Rothgan stammered out his assurances that he would do all he could, Hild turned to the second black-skinned demon that had accompanied her. "Arlonath, you are to see to it that Angie is not disturbed or hindered during her investigation, and escort her back to headquarters when she is ready to report," she said firmly, and Arlonath nodded, contemptuously looking over Rothgan, then tapped Angie on the shoulder, making her leap to the side with a shriek.

"Come, girl, let's get started," he rumbled, with a nod to Hild, and Angie jerkily imitated him.

"Of course, with your permission, Mistress," Angie said, and Hild waved her off airily, smiling inwardly at the vicious snarl that crossed Angie's face as she turned away.

/\

Hild sighed in relief when the intercom chirped its signal of her secretary's request for attention. _Wouldn't it be nice if I could simply sit the occasional rebel leader down and have them handle my paperwork for a few days?_ she thought whimsically as she reached for the acceptance button. "Yes, Victoria?" she asked with a smile as the lovely blonde woman's face appeared.

"Ranma and her escort are here, Mistress," Victoria replied nervously, and Hild nodded.

"Excellent, send them in," she ordered, and looked toward the door. A few seconds later it opened, and Rethgar and Ranma stepped through.

Hild ignored Rethgar for a moment to look over his charge. Ranma was cleaned up nicely, now-shiny red hair tied back in a pigtail, dressed in the black and red clothing she'd favored in life — and eyes burning and darting in all directions, looking for any chance to strike. Nodding her approval, she looked up at Rethgar. So, any problems?" she asked, and the demon shrugged.

"Nothing major," he said as he clapped a hand on Ranma's shoulder to abort her lunge across the desk for Hild. "Once Ranma realized the lackeys were cleaning her up and not assaulting her, everything went fine."

Hild smiled cheerily. "I'm _so_ pleased," she said happily, then nodded to the redhead. "Ranma, have a seat. I have an offer for you."

Ranma warily sat on the edge of her seat, and Hild leaned back and gazed thoughtfully at her for a long moment. "So, let's start at the beginning. The purpose of Niflheim, what you've probably heard referred to as Hell, is to test mortals while alive and punish and instruct them in their failures after they die. However, sometimes mortals fail so spectacularly that we … hurry up the process a bit, don't wait for their deaths. To that end, I have an elite band of warriors called the Furies, and I'd like you to join it."

Ranma stared at the beautiful blond woman across the desk in shock for a long moment, then settled back in her chair. "Why me?" she asked, and Hild shrugged.

"Why not you?" she said. "You are a trained warrior proven in battle, you understand honor," — _well enough_ — "and you've certainly learned how to hate abusers in the past year, you're perfect. However, if you don't wish to accept the offer I can hardly force you to take it — you'll just be handed back to Rothgan to hang up on his wall again, I'm sure he'd be delighted to have you back."

Ranma snorted. "Yeah, like hell ya can't force me ta take the position. A' course I'll take it! What do I gotta do?"

"Good!" Hild enthused, sitting up straight. "Now, there is _one_ last test to make sure you qualify, but you shouldn't mind it — name the mortals you most want to take revenge upon, and we'll send you back to Midgard — Earth — to deal with them personally."

Ranma stiffened in shock. "That's it — the entire test?" she asked incredulously, and at Hild's nod a viciously hungry look crossed the busty redhead's face. "Well, in that case let's go for Pop, Ryoga, Shampoo, Mousse, and Akane," she snarled.

_Oh, shit! I was afraid of that._ "Good," Hild repeated, and pushed a button to the side of her desk. In the ceiling above her head, a portal opened up and after a few minutes a large black raven flew through and landed on the desk in front of her, looking around the room and then focusing on Ranma with eyes flickering with intelligence. Reaching out to pet the raven, Hild said, "You will be given whatever tools or weapons you ask for, transported to the location of each of your targets, and returned when you are done. You will be no stronger or faster than you were while alive, but you may find that you are unkillable and heal rapidly. This raven" — nodding to the bird on her desk — "is Thought. He will accompany you to observe all that happens."

Ranma looked thoughtfully at the bird, then nodded. "Alright, when do I start?" she asked.

"When would you like to start?"

"Not right away, I'm a little out of practice. Ya got anywhere I can do katas, anyone I can spar with?" Ranma asked, and Hild nodded, then looked over at Rethgar.

"See to it," she ordered, and the demon nodded.

"Of course, Mistress. Come on, Ranma, let's get started. I'm curious to see what you are capable of."

Ranma grinned as she hopped out of her chair. "You betcha! It'll feel good to finally cut loose." She started for the door, then stopped and turned back to Hild. "Uh, thanks fer the opportunity, I owe ya big," she said, scratching the back of her neck and looking at the floor.

"No need to thank me, Ranma, I'm sure you will more than repay me. _Everyone_ repays me eventually," Hild said brightly, and the spirit and demon quickly left, Thought flying after them.

As soon as the door closed, the smile slid from Hild's face and she simply stared into space for long minutes before shaking her head. _Well, maybe this will still work out,_ she thought bleakly, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut, and returned to the paperwork Ranma's visit had interrupted.

* * *

One little idea I'm taking from the Hell anthologies back when the shared universe fad was big (C.J. Cherryh's "Legions of Hell" was my favorite) is where Nifleim's bureaucracy comes from. In that series, all the players had sycophants, greenish translucent blobby ghosts that spied and ran errands for the people that mattered — if I remember correctly, they were bootlickers in life that got to carry on in death. As you might imagine, there are a lot of them. Hild's bureaucrats aren't green blobby ghosts, but they *are* the spirits of mortals that were the brownnosers in life that didn't care what the job was so long as it got done and they got the credit (or at least avoided the blame if things didn't work out). Now, in death they get to reprise their roles until they figure out that jobs have purposes, those purposes have moral value, and that that moral value matters to them.

And of course, the Furies are my own creation, just a thought that if Asgard has the Valkyries, then Niflheim should have a corresponding elite force.

**one. who. reads:** It's a bit more complicated than that. For this story Ranma actually belongs in Hell, but because of the way he thought rather than the way he acted - here, Hell is for the morally insane as well as the morally corrupt. Ranma's problem is that he hands the right to make important decisions in his life over to others. She ends up getting hauled down to Niflheim after her death because she believes that her father has a right to make the contract he did, and she stays there so long as she continues to believe it. It's an idea I picked up from Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's fantasy,Inferno.

For the Crow crossover, I usually label those kind of stories as fusions rather than crossovers - having the Nerima Wrecking Crew fall through a portal into Middle Earth at the time of the War of the Ring would be a crossover, having the various members of the Nine Walkers be counterparts of the NWC, or have the NWC end up on a quest based on the plot of TLotR would be a fusion.


	4. Family Reunion

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Genma slowly came awake next to his wife in the bed they shared in the rebuilt Saotome home, with the vague feeling that something was wrong. He lay there in the dark, eyes closed, reaching out to sense the ki around him, and found all well — the only real sources other than a few insect sparks were Nodoka beside him and their unborn child growing in her womb. In the freedom of the darkness, he gently smiled to himself at the slight touch. Nodoka had refused to make plans to get an ultrasound, insisting that it wasn't "traditional" to learn of the baby's sex before birth, but he thought she simply didn't want to spoil the surprise, which was why he hadn't told her he could tell their child's sex from the feel of the ki. Carefully, to avoid waking Nodoka, he reached out and placed his hand on her stomach.

"Hiya, Panda."

The voice came like a splash of cold water, and Genma shot upright, looking around wildly, eyes widening at the sight of a familiar petite busty redhead leaning against the bedroom wall, the Satome honor blade held in her crossed arms and a large raven sitting on her shoulder. It wasn't possible, there was no ki signature at all, there was nothing there! "R-R-Ranma?" Genma stuttered as Nodoka stirred beside him, opening bleary eyes.

"Yup," the impossible apparition said, pushing upright.

"But you're dead! We buried you!" Genma said in a choked voice, and Ranma chuckled.

"Right again, dead and damned, thanks ta you. But even in hell ya sometimes get a second chance."

Ranma's voice finally sank into Nodoka's sleep-fogged mind, and she bolted upright next to her husband and stared at her child, stunned speechless. Ranma glanced at her coldly, then refocused her attention on Genma.

"Wonderful!" Genma enthused. "You escaped! I knew you would, not even Hell can hold a true martial artist. Now that you're back, we can hold the wedding and then ..."

"One problem, Panda, I didn't escape," Ranma said, her voice arctic cold in a way her parents had never heard before, and Genma felt a shiver of uncertainty travel up his spine.

" 'Didn't escape'?" he repeated.

"Yup, I was taken away from the demon ya sold me to by the Daimakaicho and given an offer I couldn't refuse, ta join Hell's elite. Funny how the test ta get in is what I wanted ta do, anyway — kill the people that sent me ta Hell in the first place and see if they enjoy it as much as I did."

"K-k-kill ..."

"Yeah, kill," Ranma repeated, "an' you're first." Ranma's eyes flickered to Nodoka again and back to Genma. "Why don't we take this out back? No point in getting' yer blood all over Mom." Then, when Genma simply sat, too stunned to move, his daughter added, "though here's good fer me, too, I don't really care that much."

Also glancing at his wife and nodding jerkily, Genma got out of bed and pulled on his gi, then stumbled past Ranma towards the door to the back yard with the raven flying ahead of him, seeing Ranma walking soundlessly behind him out of the corner of his eye. This _was_ Ranma, but a Ranma with all the gentleness and mercy he'd mocked and insulted her for burned out — she really meant to kill him, and Genma had no idea what she was capable of now. "What about your mother? Do you intend to kill her, too?" he asked as the pair walked out into the cool night air.

"Nah," Ranma replied. "She helped make my life hell, but nothin' she did sent me ta the real thing — that was you. Now, let's do this."

Genma nodded, turning to face Ranma as the redhead unsheathed the Saotome blade and gently leaned the scabbard by the door, his mind racing. _Good,_ he thought, _that means I only have to worry about me, and not all three of us. That simplifies things enormously._

For a time, the two simply stood staring at each other. Finally, Ranma said, "Ya aren't going ta be able ta outwait me, Panda. After waitin' a year while gettin' raped on a regular basis, I'm in no hurry. As far as I'm concerned, we can stand here all night, and the next night, however many it takes."

Genma nodded, tensed as if to charge, and suddenly Ranma was down and rolling to the side as two vacuum blades slashed through the space her midsection had been a split-second earlier. Even as Ranma rolled to her feet Genma turned to flee, wrapping the obscuring blanket of the Silent Thief over himself and immediately changing direction at a right angle of his first dash as he employed the Saotome Final Technique. If he could just make it away and into hiding, buy time to search for a way to banish his son back the hell he'd come out of ...

Then he felt intense slashing pain across the backs of his ankles and collapsed, his out of control momentum smashing him through the fence and into the neighbor's yard. As lights went on in the neighbor's house, Ranma stepped around to where Genma could see her plainly, casually holding her sword, blood running along its edge.

"Gee, Panda, you've gotten predicable in yer old age," Ranma said almost lightly, then raised her sword in a two-handed grip. Desperately, Genma attempted a leg sweep, only to have Ranma leap over the kick, somehow slip _between_ two more vacuum blades, the light in the neighbor's house going out as the blades continued on and one chopped through the nearest pole and powerlines broke and sparked as the top thundered to the street. Genma desperately raised his arms and poured ki into them until they seemed to glow. He should be able to strengthen them enough to stop a blade. It would hurt, but he'd still be alive. He determinedly ignored his own cynical voice asking, _And then what?_

Ranma saw the uplifted arms beginning to glow. _Oh, no you don't!_ she thought hungrily, and _something_ seemed to flow out of her, suffusing the sword, turning it pitch black, and then the blade sheared through both forearms and even as her father's hands flew off into the night it continued on to slash through Genma's fat neck and bury itself in the lawn beneath him.

Ranma stepped back to avoid the blood spurting out from the neck stump, and for a time coldly stared down at her father's head staring up from the center of the bright red pool, then knelt and cut off a piece of Genma's gi and began cleaning her sword as she walked back toward the Saotome residence, Thought again landing on her shoulder.

/\

Nodoka huddled on the bed, blankets pulled around her, listening desperately for some hint of what was happening outside — there'd been the sound of something smashing through the fence, and something else smashing onto the street, but since then the night had gone deathly silent and she shook as her mind jumped from one possible outcome to another. Then she froze as her daughter strode back through the door, a hard smile on her face as she cleaned the family honor sword's blade.

"Well, Mom, it looks like you'll need ta report another training accident to the police," Ranma said offhandedly, and Nodoka collapsed into a heap, the world going hazy in shock. Grimly, she held onto consciousness, forcing the world back into focus to find the raven from before perched on the bed looking her in the eyes, but ignored it to finally look up at the redhead again leaning against the wall.

Pushing herself back up to a sitting position, Nodoka forced her throat clear and in a husky voice said, "Ranma, I'm pregnant."

Ranma stiffened, then shrugged. "So I did the kid a favor, he or she won't have ta worry about being raised by the Panda." Then, looking over the trembling matron huddling before her, Ranma sighed. "Relax, Mom, I never intended ta hurt ya." Then, as Nodoka relaxed, continued, "But that doesn't mean I'm happy with ya, either."

Ranma began to stiffly pace in what little floor space the bedroom had, fists clenched around the scabbard they held. "Mom," she snarled, "fer the first few months I was raped at least half a dozen times _a day_ by that monster! That slowed down ta once or twice a week fer awhile before picking up, but that was almost worse — spending day after day doing nothin' but hangin' in my niche, wonderin' every time that bloated bastard came down the hall if he was comin' fer me and feelin' ashamed that I was happy when some other poor girl got raped instead. Then, the rate started picking up again, up ta at least once a day by the time the Daimakaicho a' Hell came in and got me off the wall, cleaned up, and offered me the chance to let my betrayers know what it's like."

Ranma stopped pacing and turned to face the bed, her face failing to soften at the sight of her mother once again huddled, arms wrapped around her knees, tears pouring down her face. Her face gone cold, she said, "Now, none a that was yer fault, it was the Panda's and some others I'm gonna take care of. But there's somethin' that was. Rothgan had a favorite story he'd tell me over an' over, as he was playin' with my body — how I'd always been as much a tool and plaything ta my parents as I was ta him, and how even as he'd been hauling me down ta his quarters ta 'try out' fer the first time the Panda had been standin' over my corpse cursing me fer a weak, useless failure of a girl and you'd been callin' the police ta make sure that those that killed me wouldn't be charged with my murder, ta sweep the whole thing under the rug so ya could get on with makin' my replacement with the family honor intact.

"Well, I did a lot a' thinkin' while waitin' fer him ta pick me out again, and I decided he was right. So, two things — first, fer what it's worth ya no longer have a child, just like ya never really did, just a path ta fame and easy living fer the Panda and a baby-making machine fer you. So I don't want nothin' from you, including the name, I'll think a' somethin' else. And second, I'll be takin' this with me," she said, hefting the Saotome honor blade. "It'll make a handy pig-sticker. And I'll be keepin' an eye on ya and the kid as best I can, and if I like what I see, if I can I'll return the sword in, say, around nineteen years — when the kid's as old as I was when ya threw me away.

And with that, the revenant formerly known as Ranma strode from the room, ignoring her former mother crying out the name she'd just abandoned, the raven flying from the bed to the petite girl's shoulder.

/oOo\

Sitting in her office chair in her inner sanctum, Hild nodded thoughtfully, eyes focused on the mirror on the wall showing Thought's view of Ranma striding down the main hall of the Saotome home toward the black circle of the gate still open on the family room wall. _So far, so good,_ she thought, smiling grimly with the memory of how effortlessly Ranma had dealt with her father. _Still, don't get your hopes up — after the deal Genma made with Rothgar and all the years of abuse, this was the easy one._ Then, her smile turned whimsical. _But if Ranma — or rather The Revenant Formerly Known as Ranma — passes her test she'll make a _very_ interesting fury. That part with the story, abandoning even her birth name and the sword was inspired!_ Standing and stretching, Hild strode toward her sanctum's door, adding aloud to herself, "So let's welcome the conquering hero home, maybe that'll help later."

* * *

Well, _that_ attempt to use the forums was a flop. I decided I simply wouldn't have the time to manage the things properly. So, author's notes are back in the previous chapters, along with my responses to one. who. reads. I'll simply have to accept the word count and review inflation.

Anyway, thanks for the reviews, I'm getting more than I ever expected for this rapid an update schedule.

Originally, I was going to go with Ranma just having her skill and the strength and speed she'd had when alive. But when I first posted the chapter at Anime Addventures Lyner questioned whether that would be enough for Ranma to win, and while I still think it would that got me to thinking on how soul powers would work differently than ki. So, for this setting at least, the big difference is that ki is energy produced by the body and stored with excess constantly bleeding off (standard, I know), while the soul _is_ energy — Ranma isn't a body encasing a soul, she's her soul made solid. This means that, unlike ki, she can't be throwing pieces of herself away as energy bolts. Still, that doesn't mean it can't be projected in a way, like Ranma instinctively did with the sword — covering it with her own essence and essentially making it one with herself for a few seconds. Lyner, thanks for kicking off the inspiration.

**MikeTn1:** Glad you're still enjoying it, I hope you enjoy the twists coming up. As for "relatively quickly," I'm not sure why Ranma would hold out - given a chance to get off the Wall and strike back at those that put her there, I'd think she'd jump at the chance.

**one. who. reads:** Normally, I only use PMs in response to reviews that need one when the story has been completed or won't be updated for quite awhile. I prefer to respond to public questions/concerns with public answers. But as I said above, the forums are a bust.


	5. The End of the Rivalry

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

The redheaded revenant formerly known as Ranma strode through the temporary Gate between the Saotome home and the central headquarters of Niflheim, the hilt of the Saotome family sword in one hand and the scabbarded blade leaning against her shoulder, a broad grin on her face, and the raven Thought riding her other shoulder.

The waiting Hild's eyebrows went up at the sight of the grin. "You're certainly in a good mood," she said, smiling slightly. "No uncertainty about carrying out the execution, no hesitation?"

The revenant shook her head. "Nope, not at all, the Panda got exactly what he deserved, and I imagine is getting more now."

"Yes, he is, the full measure for his sins," Hild agreed. "Do you want to see?"

Pausing, the prospective fury frowned thoughtfully. "Noooo, I don't think so," she said slowly. "It's enough ta know he's finally getting what's comin' to him, I don't need ta watch. I might actually start feeling sorry fer the bastard."

_Good for you,_ Hild thought as she kept her smile in place, feeling her singing tension easing off slightly. _I have plenty of torturers already, I don't need a Fury that gets off on pain. Still, that wasn't ever a major worry._

Aloud, she asked, "So, do you want a break, or to move right along?"

"No point in waiting," the redhead said with a shrug. "Let's get Pig Boy out of the way."

Hild nodded to the technician standing at a console to the side, and the blond seeming-human tattooed demon's hands flew across the console.

While her lackey brought down the Gate and worked at opening a new one, Hild nodded at the backpack resting against the wall. "Rethgar said the special equipment you requested for the Ryoga strike is in the backpack. What is it?"

"I think I'll leave that a surprise," the revenant said with a light grin after a moment's thought, first examining then closing and picking up the backpack and slinging it over one shoulder. Then the grin turned ugly, as she snarled, "It'll help ya enjoy the show."

/oOo\

Ryoga trudged through the falling snow, ignoring the beauty of the moonlight reflecting off the dusting of white on the evergreens around him as easily as he did the weight of the huge backpack he carried. It was very early morning, dawn still an hour away, but he had no problem finding his way under the trees — the light cast by the faint sickly-green glow he radiated was enough to light his way.

The fanged young man broke into a clearing, lit up by moonlight. He glanced around indifferently then started across, only to freeze at the sound of a still-familiar voice, one that had haunted his dreams for a year. "Hey, P-chan, been awhile since ya helped kill me."

Whirling, Ryoga stared as a shadow under a tree moved, and his long-time nemesis stepped into the clearing, a large raven riding a small backpack over one shoulder and an unsheathed sword in one hand. "Ranma?" he whispered.

"Used to be, not anymore," the girl said. "After the way Genma and Nodoka discarded me, I figured I'd return the favor."

"I ... you ... so what do I call you?" Ryoga stammered out.

The former Saotome glanced over as the raven hopped onto her shoulder and stared at the fanged boy. "Call me Raven," she said. "It's as good a name as any, and from what I remember from one lesson in mythology it fits well enough."

Ryoga stared for another long moment, then started to shake. "Where have you been _hiding_ the past year!" he shouted out. "Do you have any idea what you did to my life when you ran away and hid? Akane tried to kill me! And Akari, she refuses to even see me ... when she heard what happened she wouldn't accept that it was your own incompetence that ... that killed you ... how did you fake ... ?"

He stared at the newly-named Raven for a moment, then his face hardened as he shrugged off the straps so his backpack crashed to the ground. "I don't care! Because of your cowardice my life is in ruins, now I've truly seen Hell! Ranma, prepare to die! Shi Shi Hokoden!"

Thought flew up to a nearby tree branch where it could view the action as the newly-named Raven easily dodged, the burning green ball of ki flashing past her to detonate against one of the trees circling the clearing, then cartwheeled away as, with a series of groaning, cracking sounds, the tree slowly leaned over and fell between the two.

Leaping up onto the tree, she shook her head at Ryoga. "Amazin' how often ya can be wrong in one rant," she said. "First, I haven't been hiding, I've been dead — ya oughta know, ya helped kill me when ya charged into my fight without botherin' ta check out what was goin' on. Second, ya haven't come close ta seeing Hell yet, but ya will. And third, ya probably think this is yet another of our usual fights, where ya do yer best ta kill me, while I treat it like a lark. It isn't, it's an execution."

With that, Raven dropped down to crouch behind the tree Ryoga had brought down. Swinging the backpack from off her shoulder, she quickly opened it and pulled out a handful of small glass-like round balls even as she scuttled along the tree to its top. She popped up for a quick look just as another shi shi hokodan exploded against the tree trunk where she had been standing.

"Ranma! Come back and DIE!" Ryoga howled as he threw himself over the tree trunk, a massive ball of ki glowing green between hands cupped at chest level.

"Hey, bacon-breath, over here!" Raven called from the side, and Ryoga whirled and thrust his hands forward, screaming out his hatred as he fired another flaming green ball of ki.

Again, Raven easily dodged, leaping over the coruscating sphere and throwing the three balls in her hand. They smashed into the tree trunk beside Ryoga, and he started, eyes widening, as he felt moisture splash across the back of a hand. As he lifted the hand to stare at the water dripping off, Raven dug into her backpack to pull out another three balls. "Remember how ya got me ta promise not ta tell anyone about yer curse, and then used it ta sneak into Akane's bed?" the redhead called out. "Ya really shouldn't have done that. And ya shouldn't have left yer umbrella with yer backpack, either."

Ryoga glanced around wildly. The tree wouldn't work, that redheaded bitch could simply hop back and forth over it; there was no way he could make it to his backpack and get the umbrella loose before being hit — that just left the woods. It would mean abandoning his supplies, but he could always steal more.

Whirling, he raced for the woods, jinking back and forth as he ran. Glass balls flew past him on both sides to turn into globes of water splattering across the tree trunks ahead of him. Then he was at the edge of the clearing, a grin breaking across his face as he was framed by two ancient trees — and he rocked forward as two glass balls smashing into the back of his head held their shape for a split second before turning to water and splashing around him.

The fanged boy's shout turned into a squeal as he felt the familiar split-second twisting as he fell into the middle of the inevitable pile of clothes. Frantically, he struggled to shake himself out of the shirt, scrabbled out of pants he'd been wearing a second earlier, then the half-grown pig bounded for the woods. He could still make it — and a searing pain slashed through his middle and the world was spinning, and as he thudded into the ground looking back toward the clearing he could barely see his enemy flicking blood off the blade of the sword in her hand as the world went dark.

/\

Raven stared down expressionlessly at the two halves of the young pig lying at her feet, then picked up Ryoga's shirt to wipe the blade clean and turned back toward where she'd left the scabbard. _And that's two._

/oOo\

Nabiki swore as the shrilling of the telephone in the hall of the three-bedroom apartment she shared with her sisters woke her from an uneasy sleep. _If Akane has been having one of her good nights and whoever was calling woke her up, he or she is going to regret it,_ she snarled as she rolled out of bed and stumbled out into the hallway. Grabbing the cordless handset by feel in the dark, she lifted it to her head and growled, "This had better be good!"

At the sound of the voice on the other end of the line, Nabiki shot upright, the last of the drowsiness blown away by shock. "Momma Nodoka? Why are you calling so ..." ... "Genma's what!" ... "RAN — !" The middle Tendo broke off and lowered her voice to a near-whisper. "Did you say _Ranma_ killed him? _How?_" ... "Certainly, come right over, we can put out a futon in the front room." ... "No, there's no point in running, if Ranma can find us here, he'll be able to find us anywhere we can get to quickly. Besides, Akane would demand to know why, and when we tell her she'd refuse to leave." ... "Listen, just come on over, we can talk it over when you get here." ... "I love you, too."

Hanging up the phone, Nabiki turned to find Kasumi standing in the doorway to her bedroom. "You heard?"

Kasumi nodded. "Let me throw on a robe and get water heating for tea, lay out the futon for Mama Nodoka."

* * *

Thanks much for the reviews! Glad you're enjoying it so far, hope it keeps up.

**Vld:** Yeah, I remember the second two Crow mini-series by other writers about other Crows — not anywhere near as good as the first, of course.


	6. Honey, I'm home!

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

At a former minor Buddhist temple not far from the Nekomi Institute of Technology (at least, if you had a good motorcycle), a young college student stumbled yawning into the kitchen. Rubbing his eyes from the early morning light coming through the windows, he smiled as his lovely brown-haired fiancée called a cheerful greeting and handed him a cup of tea before returning to preparing breakfast. Keiichi had wondered at times why a goddess would know how to cook, but he wasn't going to argue with the results — not when he could simply sit and delight in watching Belldandy move about the kitchen and enjoy the early morning peace —

"Skuld! What are you doing in my room? !"

"What do you think? Come on, Urd, where did you hide it?"

"Where did I hide _what_? Don't touch that!"

BA-HOOOM! ! ! !

— while it lasted.

"Oh, dear, I had better see what is going on," Belldandy said with a rueful smile.

Keiichi chuckled, shaking his head in amusement as she rushed from the room toward the sound of coughing as wisps of smoke drifted through the doorway along the ceiling. "That wish was the best joke I ever made, but it's certainly made life interesting," he mused.

The sounds of renewed shouting echoed down the hall, though not loud enough to drown out the phone when it rang, and a still chuckling Keiichi picked it up. "Moshi moshi," he started, then froze. "Uh, yes, Sir, I'll get her right away!" Putting his hand over the transmitter, he called down the hall, "Belldandy, your Father wants to speak to you!"

/\

"So, what did Father want?" Belldandy's tall, voluptuous (if currently somewhat singed) platinum blonde older sister asked when the middle Norn rejoined her sisters, her fiancé right behind her. The goddess of the past was frowning slightly at the complete absence of her younger sister's normal gentle smile.

"Yeah, it must be serious!" a suddenly nervous Skuld added. The dark-haired seeming-child was much older that she looked, and while she had seen her older sister when she was angry (scary!), sad, happy, loving (often when looking at Keiichi, ick!), disappointed and fearful, she couldn't remember a time she had seen Belldandy's face without any expression at all.

"He had an assignment for me, I will be gone most of the day. I've rushed the breakfast I was preparing, it's waiting for you," Belldandy replied in almost a monotone. "Urd, Father had an assignment for you, as well. It seems your mother is recruiting a new Fury. Father wants you to read his — her — file and observe her final test. Her self-chosen name is now Raven, but she was formerly Saotome Ranma."

Without another word, she turned and stepped into Urd's now-cracked full-length mirror and was gone, leaving one human male and two goddesses exchanging worried glances.

/oOo\

In Nyucheizu, a large village hidden in the Bayankala Range, a _very_ old woman stirred with a groan as the early morning light coming through the window edged across her face. _I had forgotten how ... interesting ... a newborn makes things at any and all hours_, she thought as she cracked open her eyes to gaze up at the ceiling.

As if on cue, the newest addition to her line squalled out her renewed hunger, her cries easily penetrating the house's thin interior walls. They were quickly followed by the sounds of the baby's mother hastily rising from the bed she shared with her husband of less than a year, and within moments the cries were cut off as presumably her great-great-granddaughter drank her breakfast.

With a sigh, the Amazon matriarch rose from her own bed. She briefly considered waiting for Mu Tse to rise and prepare breakfast, but quickly decided against it — the meals in her home had been tense affairs lately, soured by her suspicions about the death of Xian Pu's previous husband a year earlier. She simply hadn't been able to stop wondering over how quickly Mu Tse had replaced Ranma in her great-granddaughter's heart, and the questions she couldn't bring herself to ask had created a wall between herself and the two teenagers. All in all, better to go hungry until lunch and be free of the household's atmosphere.

Taking up her staff, Ku Lon pogoed out into the kitchen and grabbed some leftovers from the previous night's dinner, then left for the training field where she had been training the youngest girls in the beginnings of the martial arts that all Amazon warriors learned. It was far from the prestigious duties her years as an Elder entitled her to, but she had not complained — after the Nerima fiasco she counted herself lucky to still be on the Council.

As she approached the field, a young child ran up to her, one she recognized from her classes — Ting Shu. "Elder Ku Lon! Elder Ku Lon! Come quick! There's a Seeker of Justice at the front gate asking for you!" the girl called out excitedly. "It's the Godkiller!"

Ku Lon carefully didn't react at the words even as she felt her heart sink. There could be only one reason Ranma had returned from the dead, and come _here_, and the Seekers of Justice were not always particularly discriminating in their quests. Ranma alive had grown powerful enough to require the entire Council to deal with if he'd turned against the village; a Ranma returned from the dead with all that entailed was infinitely worse, and if he blamed the Joketsuzoku en mass for what had happened to him...

Ting Shu hadn't waited for a reply from her teacher, turning as soon as she had shouted her message to rush back toward the gate, and Ku Lon pogoed in her wake, quickly overtaking and passing her student. Reaching the still-closed gate, she bounded to the walkway above it, landing on the shoulder of one of the guards, and looked down, her heart sinking even lower at the sight awaiting her.

Rather than the figure of a dark-haired young man Ku Lon had expected, she found the fiery-haired girl Ranma had been cursed to turn into, a katana the matriarch recognized as the sword Ranma's mother had carried slung across her back, and she suddenly realized that in the retellings of how Ranma had come to die, neither Xian Pu nor Mu Tse had said just which form she'd been wearing. Nor had any member of the Council thought to ask.

And to make matters even worse, there was the large raven riding the redhead's shoulder — the bird radiated Power, such that combined with what the girl it was with had become there was only one bird it could be. Ku Lon wondered for a brief moment how Ranma had gained the Queen of Hell's personal attention before she forced the distraction aside as irrelevant.

Ting Shu had dashed up the stairs to the walkway, and was now bouncing up and down, trying to get high enough to see over the parapet, exclaiming, "I wanna see! I wanna see!" in her high-pitched child's voice.

Glancing down at the eager girl, Ku Lon couldn't help but smile at the spectacle even now. "Li Hwan, lift her up for a moment, let her get a look. And Ting Shu," she continued after pausing for a moment to make room for the girl's squeal of delight, "Once you've had your look, go find Dou Jan, and then the rest of the Council and let them know what's happening. _And then_ I want you to go home," she added as the child pouted. "This is adult business, you aren't nearly old enough yet. Promise?"

She glared sternly until Ting Shu reluctantly nodded, then nodded to Li Hwan. The guard set her spear aside and lifted the child up.

The young girl stared down in awe at the redheaded figure below, then impulsively waved. Ranma had been gazing up at the guards above the gate the entire time, and Ku Lon felt the singing tension at her heart ease when the spirit smiled and waved back. Whatever was to come, she didn't have to worry about Ranma holding the entire village responsible for the sins of her great-granddaughter.

/\

Raven patiently waited outside the closed main gate to Nyucheizu, gazing up at the guards atop the wall. She wouldn't have been so patient, of course, or waited for hours before arriving for that matter, if it hadn't been for the deal Hild-sama had told her about when she had returned from her execution of P-chan and announced that Shampoo and Mousse were her next targets. Apparently, there had been a revenant that the Amazons kept from his target, at the cost of half their warriors and a third of the Elders. Afterwards, the surviving Elders had summoned Hild-sama herself to ask why the ranting lunatic of a revenant had returned, and what they could do to prevent a follow-up visit. The result had been the execution of the revenant's target, and Hild-sama had agreed to have future visiting revenants announce themselves at the gates.

Suddenly a familiar shrunken figure bounced up to land on a shoulder of one guard to gaze down at the waiting revenant. Ku Lon said something in a tone too low for Raven to hear, and few moments later the other guard leaned down and lifted up a girl-child. The child stared down at her for a moment, then hesitantly waved. Raven smiled and waved back, and the child clapped her hands in delight before the guard lowered the young girl back down out of sight. A moment later, Ku Lon hopped from her perch to the top of the parapet, then dropped down to the road leading to the gate and pogoed toward the waiting redhead.

"Well, Ranma, I must say that you have surprised me yet again," the old woman said quietly when she reached the revenant. "However did you come to the attention of the Queen of Hell? While you were no saint, I would have expected you to have a different final destination."

Raven's face froze. "The name's Raven, now. Shampoo an' Mousse didn't tell ya about the demon that showed up ta haul me off ta Hell after Ryoga and Mousse got done choppin' me up?" she demanded.

"No, they didn't," Ku Lon said with a sigh. "It seems there was quite a lot they left out. How did a demon end up with a claim to your soul? I wouldn't have expected you to have dealings with such."

"No, but Pop did, usin' my soul instead a' his," Raven ground out.

"I see." Ku Lon glanced at the hilt of the katana. "From the sword you're carrying I take it you already dealt with your father before coming here?"

"Yeah, and the Pig Boy, too. C'mon, Ole Ghoul, let's get this over with, I still got another stop." Raven's voice was arctic cold, something the Amazon Elder had never heard before from the Ranma she'd known, and she abandoned all hope of convincing the revenant to give up her vengeance. She simply bowed, motioned to the guards to order the gates opened, then silently led the two Ravens into the village.

* * *

One comment on how "easy" Ranma — Raven, now — is being on her targets. Don't forget that she has just finished a year of her own in Hell, and knows very well just how awful it can be ("is," from her perspective, she hasn't seen much of it). So she know that she's sending those she kills on to more pain and humiliation than she could dream of inflicting herself.

The number of reviews has been a real surprise, thanks!

**Poetheather1:** Yeah, Ryoga wasn't much of a challenge, for someone that was the only person in the manga to stay within shouting range of Ranma's skill level. But if someone simply wants to kill him, knows his history, and has some time to prepare, Ryoga is hideously easy to kill. As you say, some cold water and enough skill to catch him on the bounce or serious firepower to throw downrange and it's all over. And yeah, while Ryoga's tendency to blame everything on Ranma faded in the latter part of the manga, I think, it was because Ryoga's situation changed rather than any improvement in his character.

**Vld:** It'll be interesting to see what you think of how I handled Akane. For _The Crow_, I've seen the first movie but can't remember much of it, I was pretty tired. My take on the Crow is based on the original comic mini-series.

**LadyKatherine29:** Yeah, the rating might be a bit high. The problem is, while it's fairly easy to just the more extreme levels of sex, violence is another matter. My basic rule has been, if the violence I'm describing was shown on the big screen, what rating would it be? For the violence in this story I think it would be an upper "R" or lower "NC-17" rating, because it isn't the usual cartoon violence. At least, that's what I was shooting for: _Saving Private Ryan_ rather than _G.I. Joe_, much less _A-Team_.

**ijpowers92:** Yeah, a straight revenge fic can be too predictable and so eventually boring.

**Jerry Unipeg:** Don't worry, Genma isn't going anywhere. Hild simply has more important things on her mind at the moment.


	7. As you sow, so will you reap

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Gently holding Li Tai, her baby eagerly suckling at her breast, Xian Pu sighed as she listened to her great grandmother moving about, from her bedroom to the kitchen, and out the front door. It seemed she and her husband wouldn't have the pleasure of the presence of the head of her family at breakfast — again.

_Not that Great-grandmother's presence has been that much of a pleasure lately,_ the teenager thought. _She knows Mu Tse and I conspired to kill Ranma. I don't know how, but she knows. And what happens to my future advancement in the tribe if she refuses to provide even such support as she can after Nerima?_

Careful not to disturb her child, the purple-haired girl leaned over and shook the shoulder of her snoring husband. Mu Tse was instantly awake and reaching for his glasses (she had finally convinced him being able to tell her from a wooden pole was worth the hit to his pride). Slipping on the coke-bottle lenses, he smiled happily at the mother-and-child scenery they revealed. "Now, _that's_ the proper way to wake up," he murmured, and his wife gently punched him in the shoulder.

"Our little one isn't the only one that's hungry," she informed him with a laugh in her voice. "Time to get breakfast — just for two." Mu Tse grimaced at the news and rose to throw on a robe, pausing only long enough to gently run his hand along the back of his daughter's head and give his wife a soft kiss before heading for the kitchen.

/\

Xian Pu had just put her contentedly full and once again sleeping daughter in a cradle by a wall in the main room and was sitting down at the table for the simple breakfast Mu Tse was preparing, when the couple heard a knock on the door.

Mu Tse hurried over to open the door, froze, then stepped back and bowed deeply. "Elder Li Ku, welcome to our home," he said respectfully. "But I'm sorry to say that Elder Ku Lon has already left for the training field, you should find her there."

"I am not here for the Elder," the tiny wizened old woman balancing on her staff replied coldly. "Xian Pu, Mu Tse, your presence is required by the Council at the training field."

Xian Pu stiffened at the lack of her title as Champion in the summons, but rose to her feet. "We will come immediately, of course," she responded calmly. Turning, she carefully lifted her child from the cradle even as her mind raced, trying to figure out what could have caused the Council to so suddenly turn hostile.

A few minutes later the two teenagers approached the training field, Elder Li Ku pogoing ahead and two warriors that had come with her walking behind the two. Xian Pu was now fighting down rising panic — she still had no idea what was happening, but the empty streets they had walked along told her it was serious.

Then they turned onto the final street leading to the field, to find their view blocked by a line of warriors running along the field's edge. As they approached the warriors parted, faces cold. The little party passed through the opening, the line reforming behind them, and Xian Pu and Mu Tse slammed to a stop at the sight now revealed — a _very_ familiar redheaded Japanese girl waiting in the middle of the field, a bared katana in her hand and a large raven on her shoulder, beside Elder Ku Lon balancing in her staff.

Xian Pu looked around wildly, only to find the field completely surrounded by warriors, an elder in front of the line every dozen feet or so. Her hold on her armful tightened to the point that the baby woke up, wailing at the pressure, and the teenager forced her grip to relax, gently bouncing Li Tai and murmuring to her until her crying died away and the little one smiled up at her mother and burbled happily.

"Xian Pu, Mu Tse, stand forth for one demanding justice!" her great-grandmother intoned loudly in Japanese. "A Seeker of Justice formerly known as Saotome Ranma, now named Raven, has come seeking one that had conspired at her murder, and one that carried it out."

Xian Pu and Mu Tse exchanged despairing glances, and with a sigh Xian Pu turned to one of the warriors behind her — a lifelong friend but her face now as cold as the rest — and offered Li Tai to her. "Tai Tai, whatever I may or may not have done, your namesake has done nothing. Will you guard her?" After a long moment, Tai Tai nodded, face softening. Handing her spear to the warrior next to her, she took the baby in her arms. Holding Li Tai in the crook of an arm, Tai Tai tickled her under the chin, bringing out a happy gurgle. Xian Pu and Mu Tse each placed a hand gently on their child's head for a brief moment. "Grow straight and strong, my little one," Xian Pu murmured, then the couple turned to again face the two waiting for them in the middle of the field.

When the couple reached the elder and revenant patiently waiting, Ku Lon continued in Japanese in a voice leached of all emotion, "The accuser and accused have met, let Justice be done." Without another glance at her daughter and son-in-law, she pogoed around them as the raven silently took off from Raven's shoulder.

Raven watched the old woman cross the field to settled beside Tai Tai and her great-great-granddaughter, the raven settling onto Tai Tai's shoulder, then refocused on her prey. "Let's get this over with, I still got a last visit ta Nerima," she said in a voice cold with hatred.

"I not have my weapons," Xian Pu protested.

"Turn around."

Xian Pu turned to find a warrior carrying the two chúi she had left at home, mothers with newborns being exempt from the requirement for warriors to be armed at all times. With another sigh, she accepted them and turned back as the warrior backed away. "My baby?"

"Yer kid'll be fine, I'm not gonna hurt her."

Xian Pu's shoulders slumped slightly in relief, then she straightened and took a deep breath. "As Ran — as Raven say, 'let's get this over with'." Without warning, her chúi whipped around toward the revenant from each side, only to have Raven drop into a crouch. The chúi aimed at her head brushed her flame-red hair as it passed overhead while the heavy iron sphere of the chúi aimed at her thigh pinwheeled down the field when her katana slammed into the handle edge-on.

Mu Tse desperately twisted, breaking off his own charge forward with swords in hand, when the katana that had just cut through his wife's weapon looped around and sliced open his robe across his chest. The two Amazons fell back, breaking contact with Raven, their eyes widening at the sight of the suddenly pitch-black blade in the revenant's hand.

Xian Pu felt despair washing over her at the failure of the best chance the pair had to win, a voice in her mind telling her to just give it up, charge in and die, to get it over with. _No!_ she told herself as her lips pulled back in a teeth-revealing snarl. _I may die, but I will go down as an Amazon!_ She glanced over at her husband out of the corner of her eye, and seeing that his attention was partially on her she moved her head in a circular motion. He didn't acknowledge her signal, but fell back further and began to circle as Xian Pu again slipped forward toward their patiently waiting enemy.

Raven turned to follow Mu Tse until Xian Pu was at the edge of her peripheral vision. Just as the redhead started to step to the side to keep Mu Tse in sight, Xian Pu charged forward, undamaged chúi again swinging at Raven's head and the handle of the other coming in at her side.

To the Amazon girl's shock Raven dropped her katana, one hand slamming into the underside of the handle of the undamaged chúi to divert it up and away while the other hand grabbed at the front of Xian Pu's tunic. The revenant ignored the headless handle, grunting as it smashed into her ribs, instead falling back and pulling Xian Pu forward. Then the redhead's feet slammed into her stomach and thrust her upward, and all the air left her lungs as two heavy blows smashed into her breasts.

Xian Pu landed on her feet and staggered, looked down, and her eyes went wide at the sight of the hilts of two of her husband's heaviest throwing knives flush against her chest. She looked up toward Mu Tse as she heard him scream, only to find Raven in front of her, yanking the knives free and stepping back and to the side as blood poured down the Amazon's torso. "I had a lot of time ta think, over the past year hangin' on Rothgan's wall waitin' fer the next rape. Did ya actually think I didn't figure out just what you two did?" the revenant asked, but Xian Pu ignored her. _Airen!_ she tried to shout, but her mouth was full of blood and she couldn't get air into her lungs and the darkening ground was rising to slam into her face...

/\

Raven stepped back, away from the corpse at her feet, readying herself for an assault as Mu Tse charged toward them. But the Amazon ignored her, falling to his knees and gathering his wife's body into his arms.

With a sigh, the redhead relaxed and turned to step over and pick up the Saotome honor blade. She turned back to where Mu Tse was gently stroking purple hair as he stared into his wife's unseeing eyes. With an effortless slash, his head rolled across the field as his blood-spurting torso collapsed across Xian Pu's body.

For a few minutes Raven simply stood there, gazing down at the two corpses, then cut off a piece of Mu Tse's robe and wiped the katana clean of blood. Task complete, she walked over and picked up the sheath, sheathed the sword, then turned toward the edge of the field where Tai Tai stood with LXian Pu's baby in her arms. She walked forward with her eyes fixed on the two only to stop when Ku Lon stepped in front of her without saying a word. The revenant stared down at a her longtime nemesis and trainer for a long moment, then chuckled. "Ya can relax, ol' ghoul. I told Shampoo I wouldn't hurt her kid, and I meant it."

Ku Lon silently gazed up at her for a time, then stepped aside. "If you aren't going to take your revenge on the child, why are you interested in her?" she asked in a quiet voice.

" 'Cause I'm gonna help her," Raven replied. She stepped forward and crooked her arm while gazing fixedly at Tai Tai, and after a moment's hesitation the warrior placed the baby in the revenant's arm. Raven gazed down at the infant and smiled. "I'm gonna take her away from this backwater hellhole an' give her ta someone that'll raise her ta be a human being with a future instead of a killing machine defendin' a dying people." Lifting her head, gaze hardening as she stared at the warriors in front of her, she asked, "Anybody got a problem with that?"

There was no reply, but the warriors stepped aside, opening a way off of the field. Raven strode through the opening and turned down the road toward the front gates, ignoring the ancient crone pogoing along behind her.

When they reached the gates, Ku Lon nodded to the guards to open them and bounced to the ramparts above as the revenant strode through and across the fields toward the surrounding forest. The elder watched until the last sight of the flaming red hair disappeared into the trees with what little was left of the ancient woman's future.

* * *

I can't claim to have thought up this general situation myself, I got it from a Western I read many years ago, where a gunfighter's wedding was interrupted by some old enemies that caught him with his guard down, raped his bride and then killed the both of them — they thought. Years later, when a gunman starts hunting the members of the gang, he finds one of them living as a farmer, married with a baby.

As always, thanks much for the reviews!

**Sephirotho:** No, Raven isn't linked to Thought. That wasn't part of the graphic novel so I didn't remember it, but I doubt I would have if I had.

**one. who. reads:** Yeah, chapter size has been one of the more common complaints. But given a choice between longer chapters with slower updates and shorter chapters with more rapid updates, most prefer the smaller but faster.

**Poetheather1:** The same humanizing effect is in the graphic novel, where the Crow comes across the child of a drug addict. At one point he quotes Thackeray to the drug addict: "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of all children." Later he tells a cop where the child can be found. And I think you're going to like what I did with Akane.

**Neihaera:** You almost got it right. Ryoga's other problem was that whenever he fought Ranma he did it full out, with little or no concern for bystanders. That lack of care combined with refusal to accept responsibility for the results is what gets him into Hell. But when Ranma put him on her list that wasn't what was driving her - she was after vengeance rather than justice.

**skywiseskychan:** I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the story. For Ranma, ending up on the Wall isn't a matter of punishment, but consequence — Ranma accepts that his father had the right to make those kinds of bargains for him, and this is what his father bargained. "Making the punishment fit the crime" might give some extra "oomph" to a lesson, but isn't really necessary. All that's really needed is for the person being punished to know of the link between his actions and the consequences. So for Ranma, the lesson is, "You granted others the right to make decisions for you, and this is the consequence." Mind, I don't really believe that Hell works this way, it's simply the only logical explanation I've heard for how a good person could end up in Hell, and belong there.


	8. Side Trips

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Belldandy stood on the crest of the snow- and pine-covered hill overlooking the isolated farmhouse below, the light from its windows shining out into the Rocky Mountain dusk.

Beside her, a grim-faced goddess with three circles tattooed into her forehead, dressed in a white bodysuit and holding a tall polearm in her hands, finished giving instructions to the other gods and goddesses — Valkyries all — gathered around them, all armed with a variety of spears, polearms and swords: " ... and remember, there are no innocents in that house — every living soul inside is to be sent to Hild."

At Belldandy's involuntary light mew of protest, Lind glanced over at her, stern expression seeming to soften slightly. "We have to, my friend, you know this — we cannot leave these already-damned fools to try this again."

Belldandy nodded jerkily, and Lind turned back to the rest. "Hallkell, Melkorka, stay here to watch over Belldandy — I can't imagine what might be around that could touch her, but let's not take chances." When a god and goddess nodded stoically and stepped over to flank the gentle brown-haired goddess on each side, Lind ordered, "Everyone else, let's go."

As Belldandy watched sadly, the rest of the pack vanished into the trees in both directions as they left to circle the farmhouse. Just before Lind followed, she turned back to her friend and now there was nothing 'slight' about her expression of sympathy. "Belldandy, I know this isn't what you were made for, but be strong, it'll be over soon enough ... and please don't ever change." Then Lind, too, vanished from sight into the gathering night.

/\

After a time that seemed to both take forever to arrive and come much too soon, Belldandy stepped into the farmhouse, Hallkell leading and his partner in the rear. At first there was no sign that only a few minutes before the house had been the scene of a massacre, until they reached the kitchen to find a spotless Lind waiting for them. The valkyrie was standing in a doorway to stairs leading down from a room with the walls, counters, floor, even ceiling liberally splashed with blood and the pieces of perhaps three women scattered about.

Lind took one look at Belldandy's pinched, white face and stepped forward to place a steadying hand on her shoulder. "Easy, Bell, take a moment — I am afraid the cellar is worse."

Belldandy's face blanched even further, but after a moment she drew a deep breath and nodded sharply. "I'm ready." For a moment, Lind's eyes stayed fixed searchingly on her friend's face, then she nodded in return. "Hallkell, Melkorka, wait up here, there isn't really room below." Belldandy's two escorts nodded and moved to stand at either side of the entrance to the stairs, and Lind led Belldandy downward.

The two goddesses stepped into the farmhouse's cellar, and Lind had been right — it was _much_ worse. The Norn didn't even try to estimate from the pieces how many men and women had been in the room when the Valkyrie had invaded, but other than the Valkyrie floating at each corner there was now only one body still whole — a young woman lying naked and spread-eagled on a large altar in the middle of the room, a massive wound running from her collarbone to her crotch, her unseeing, drying eyes staring up at a tiny pure-white star floating six feet above her abdomen.

Instantly, Belldandy's eyes fixed on the star and she rose into the air and floated across the room above a floor awash in blood and arms, legs, heads... she was so focused on her goal that she didn't notice when Lind swung her polearm so that its blade shielded her from the blood dripping from the ceiling. "Be at ease, little one, I'm here now," Belldandy crooned softly as she reached out her hands to cup them around the bobbing light, projecting her love and care. The light seemed to flicker slightly, a questioning feeling sweeping through the cellar, and the brown-haired goddess nodded. "Yes, whatever comes you have my love. Now come with me, let me take you to your new home." The questioning feeling shifted to a happy contentment, and when she pulled her hands toward her chest, the tiny star followed to nestle against her chest.

The Norn turned to float back toward the stairs, and was soon back upstairs and being escorted out of the house by Lind, the other six Valkyrie following behind.

The small parade stepped out of the house's side door into the half-circle of the rest of the strike team, and the flickering star resting against Belldandy's chest seemed to shrink and dim under the impact of the hatred that sprang into the eyes of the gods and goddesses when they saw Belldandy's new ward. Belldandy glared back even as she tightened her hands protectively around the light as its fear washed out. "Enough, you're scaring the little one!" she shouted.

"Little one?" one of the Valkyries cried out. "That's the Demon's Seed, the gateway to the end of the world!"

"And how many of us chose our parents?" Belldandy responded instantly. "Ask Urd, sometime. No, whoever its father is and whatever he may have programmed into it, this child is innocent!" Then focusing on the fearfully flickering star she cupped to her chest, she murmured, "Don't worry, little one, nobody's going to hurt you."

"Enough!" Lind ordered as the goddess that had spoken up opened her mouth to shout out her rebuttal, placing a hand on Belldandy's shoulder and glaring at her errant subordinate until her mouth snapped shut. "Good. This assignment is complete. I will escort Belldandy to the Seed's new home, the rest of you sanitize this site and return to Asgard."

After a moment Lind's team all nodded, and Belldandy's last view before following Lind through the portal was of the farmhouse suddenly awash in white-hot fire.

/oOo\

Raven walked through the portal from the forest around Nyucheizu into Niflhiem, stepping carefully to avoid waking up the baby she cradled in an arm. Thought flew through behind her, and the redhead looked around the room as the portal vanished.

"Nicely done, Raven," Hild complimented from where she was sitting, office chair tilted back and her crossed legs resting on the desk (Raven carefully ignored the way her split dress fell away on both sides of her firm legs). One hand clicked a remote, and the screen hung on the wall that showed a swooping view of the room they were in turned off. "I'm beginning to think that you may be wasted as a fury — your little sidelines are as to the point as your attacks are brutally effective. But that's for the future," she added with a smirk, swinging her legs off the desk and straightening up to lean forward, elbows on the desk and chin cupped in her hands. "Just what are you going to do with your new kid? I'd suggest using our daycare while you finish off Akane, but we don't exactly have daycare facilities in Niflheim."

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Raven replied with a one-shouldered shrug, Thought bouncing momentarily on her perch. "I'll just hafta drop it off on the way ta Akane. Can ya have the next portal open up close to Ucchan's?"

Hild looked thoughtful for a brief moment, then quirked an eyebrow at the technician standing behind the console to the side. He quickly started typing away, paused, frowned, and looked up only to freeze with his mouth open at the Daimakaicho's suddenly flat stare. "Well?" she asked calmly.

The technician swallowed and hastily looked down, again typing hurriedly. After several minutes he nodded jerkily, eyes still fixed on his control panel. "Yes, Mistress, one portal two blocks west of Ucchan's coming up."

Raven turned to face the way she'd come, Thought flapping her wings for a moment to keep her balance, and a moment later the now familiar oval portal sprang into existence. A few carefully gliding strides and the redheaded revenant was gone, and the portal shut down.

Hild stared reflectively at the empty space for a long moment. _I wonder if I should have told her about Ukyo-san's suicide?_ she wondered. _It isn't like she isn't going to find out herself soon enough. True, the impact on her will be greater this way, hopefully help push her all the way with Akane, and I can honestly say that my staff didn't bring it to my attention if she asks, but she's proving surprisingly insightful — what if she doesn't buy it? The scene here with that idiot technician could clue her in._

Finally, the Daimakaicho of Niflheim shrugged with a sigh. _I've done what I can, from here on things will be as they will be. But I think I'll watch the rest of this one work out in person._ Rising to her feet, she strode to a viewscreen in the wall and hit a prominent red button beneath it. The screen lit up to show her latest not-so-bubbleheaded blonde secretary, looking up hastily from her desk. "Victoria, I'll be out of the office for the next few hours," Hild said with a cheery smile.

"Of course, Mistress," Victoria responded instantly, bowing her head slightly, hiding questioning eyes.

Hild pressed the red button again and stared at the now blank screen for a long moment. _Hmmm ... it looks like Victoria's beginning to ask herself questions, good. At least _something_ good is coming out of this, whatever else happens._ Then a portal opened beneath her feet and she dropped out of sight, leaving the steel-tense technician alone in the room, doing his best not to collapse in relief across his control panel into a puddle of sweat.

* * *

The reviews per chapter rate continues to outpace any of my other stories, cool! And I know, nothing about Akane in this chapter. Don't worry, the next few chapters will include plenty.

**Poetheather1:** Yeah, taking the kid was definitely a slap at the entire village, especially for the reason given. While quite a few people aren't on Raven's little list, that doesn't mean they aren't enablers and have some punishment of their own coming short of death _—_ and getting revenge on enemies by stealing their children and raising them as your own has a long and distinguished historical record. In Raven's case, she's even helping give the kid a real future in the process (she believes, at least).

**Yuri hime Wildrose:** I have a sequel in mind, though it will be very different in direction and tone than this one. If or when it gets written, we'll see.

**LadyKatherine29:** Cologne is both more pragmatic and farsighted than I think you are giving her credit for. If she was to fight Raven, she'd be fighting other elders as well, the others afraid of another bloodbath inflicted on the village by a Seeker of Justice _—_ she'd lose and hard, possibly fatally. OTOH, Cologne isn't going to have any fear of harm coming to the baby because of Raven, and is going to have a pretty good idea of where the baby might end up.


	9. You can't go home again

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

In an alley in the Nerima district of Tokyo, a dark circle silently appeared on a wall. A few seconds later a short, busty redheaded girl stepped through it, a katana across her back, a baby in her arms, and a large raven on her shoulder. Stepping away from the opening, Raven glanced around — nobody in sight. Not that that was going to matter, as soon as she stepped out onto the sidewalk...

She glanced down at the sleeping baby with a soft smile. "Okay, kid, let's get you dropped off with Auntie Ukyo, then I can get this over with and we can both get on with our new lives. Hopefully, my duties as a fury'll let me drop in every so often and see how you're doin', along with Mom's — along with Nodoka-san's rugrat."

Stepping out of the alley, she ignored the gasps of shock and stunned expressions of the pedestrians — and the car that swerved out of control to smash into a display window — as she looked around to orient herself and nodded. _Two blocks west, just like he said._ As she strode along the sidewalk, she wondered if a disembodied spirit made solid could still eat. She hoped so — she hadn't had a single bite since she was murdered, and Ukyo had always made the best okonomiyaki she'd ever tasted. And at this time of day, Ukyo should have just opened for the early lunch crowd.

A few minutes' eager walk with Thought flight-hopping along alongside from sign to telephone wire to rooftop, and Raven almost stumbled as the familiar storefront came into view. It looked the same, but there were no lights on inside and there was a large 'For Sale' sign in the window — one that had been there awhile, from the way it had faded.

_Well, damn!_ The revenant simply stood and stared for a time, until the baby in her arm shifted slightly in its sleep. Glancing down at the little bundle, Raven sighed. _Guess I shoulda put more thought about where I wanted ta go,_ she thought. _Ukyo must of moved and not be open with a new place, yet. I'll just hafta wait till after I take care of Akane._

Briefly, she considered taking to the roofs to get it over with that much faster, then glanced down at the baby again before reluctantly deciding to go on foot. It wouldn't take _that_ much more time, but she didn't know how much longer the baby would stay asleep...

/\

Raven stared in stunned silence at the Tendo compound. At least, it _had_ been the Tendo compound, green and fringed by the colorful flowers that Kasumi had carefully tended, shade trees ... now, it was a fenced-off area of naked earth filled with construction equipment and the rising skeleton of a new apartment building, at least according to the sign.

Finally, the redhead took a deep breath. "Great, what do I do _now_?" she snarled. Deciding there wasn't much point in simply standing there, she turned away and began ambling along, deep in thought, considering who might know where the Tendos had moved to. Tofu, gone before she died. Amazons, gone. Ukyo, gone. Either one of the Kuno siblings would probably know, their insane obsessions would lead them to keep track of the Tendos in the hope that her 'Ranma-sama' would show up, in Kodachi's case, or that with the 'foul sorcerer' dead his 'fair Akane might awaken from her bespelled state', for Tatewaki. Unfortunately, the operative word was 'insane', and Raven _really_ didn't want to have to deal with either — especially not with a baby in her arms. If she returned to Niflheim before dealing with Akane, would that count as a failure and put her back on the Wall?

Suddenly, she was jarred from her circling ruminations. Stepping back from whatever she had walked into and looking up, she found herself staring at the front gates of Furinkan High School as Thought landed on the wall and seemed to caw a laugh at her — sheer habit had had her walking the usual route to school. _Idiot! You were so busy thinkin' a' who ya could ask, ya didn't think a' where else Akane might be. An' even if she isn't here, her friends will be, _they_ should know where ta find her._

/\

Looking away from the window yet again, a brown-haired, ponytailed girl did her best to force her attention back to Tani-sensei's lecture, only to have her eyes drift down toward the top of her desk — normally, math was one of her better subjects; today, she just hoped he wouldn't call on her, not after Nabiki's early morning phone call. Even now, Sayuri didn't know if she hoped or feared it would work out the way the former Mercenary Tendo thought it might.

_Should I have told Yuka about Nabiki's call?_ she wondered yet again, feeling the weight of her friend's worried gaze out of the corner of the light brown-haired girl's eye from the adjacent desk. Yet again, she rejected the rut-worn thought. Yuka was a loyal friend but no actress — not even as good as Sayuri, much less Akane — and if Ranma showed up ...

Suddenly, she was shaken from her ruminations as the class fell silent, Tani-sensei breaking off his lecture in mid-sentence. Looking up and glancing around, she froze at the sight of a familiar petite if busty redhead standing in the classroom doorway, a raven on her shoulder, check, the hilt of a katana visible over the other shoulder, check ... and a baby in her arms? !

The impossible redhead glanced around the classroom, then focused back on Sayuri and a stunned Yuka in the desk next to her. "Yuka-kun, Sayuri-kun, we need ta talk," she said in a voice of frozen helium.

Sayuri looked over at Tani-sensei, and the teacher jerkily nodded. "Of course, take as long as you need," he said in a shaking voice. "I'll pass the word to Kubo-sensei if you aren't back by the end of class so he won't mark you down as delinquent for his class and can pass it on if needed."

Suppressing a sigh, Sayuri stood. _Yeah, don't we have the most courageous, protective teachers in all Japan? !_ she thought sardonically as she turned to her friend, still frozen in shock in her seat. "Come on, Yuka, let's see what Ranma-kun wants."

/\

Raven turned around to face the two girls that had followed her out onto the school grounds, Thought settling on a low-hung branch of the tree the three girls were standing under. "I get back ta Nerima, and find Ucchan's shut down and construction where the dojo used ta be, what the hell's happened? !" she demanded abruptly, then winced at her choice of words.

Yuka and Sayuri exchanged glances. You don't know? !" they exclaimed in unison.

"Would I be askin' if I did?" the revenant growled, and Sayuri winced. "So where's Ukyo?"

"I ... I ... she ... she's dead," Yuka managed to stammer out, face pale.

Raven froze, swaying in place. "Dead?" she whispered. "When ... how ... ?"

Sayuri glanced at her shivering friend, then stepped forward to place a steadying hand on the revenant's shoulder. "It was shortly after you ... you were murdered," she replied. "When she heard what happened, sh-she committed seppuku."

"Seppuku ..." Raven repeated, then drew a deep breath as she straightened. "So what happened to Konatsu?"

"Who?"

"Her ... waitress, I guess, the cross dresser that worked for her. He would a' been her kaishakunin."

Sayuri looked blankly at the redhead for a moment, then said, "I don't know who you're talking about. From what the news reports had to say, she didn't have a second."

_No kaishakunin._ Raven closed her eyes in pain at the thought, then opened them to get rid of the image of her best friend writhing on her restaurant floor, jaw locked against screams of pain, intestines spilling from the massive slash she'd have made in her abdomen with one of her throwing spatulas, with no one there to behead her at the moment of the crosscut... Eyes on the ponytailed girl's face, the revenant realized that Sayuri was still talking.

" ... just lucky Akane didn't follow Ukyo-kun's example, not completely," the other girl was saying. "She felt that after what she had done seppuku was too good a death — that she didn't deserve to enter the next life with her honor washed clean — and so she slit her wrists instead. Praise the kami, she didn't know how to do it properly and her sisters found her before she bled out."

Raven's grip on the baby in her arms had been tightening as the revelations hammered into her, and suddenly the tiny bundle woke under the pressure and let out a squall that made the girls jump. Yuka stared as Raven hastily started rocking the crying baby, making hushing sounds like she must have seen young mothers do, and the schoolgirl began to reluctantly chuckle at the sight of panic on the revenant's face. "I take it the baby isn't yours," she commented wryly, reaching out her arms. "Here, give him — her? — to me."

A relieved Raven handed over the still-squalling baby, and Yuka frowned at the damp feel of the cloth diaper (and who still used cloth diapers in this day and age?). And yes, there was definitely a smell indicating that 'damp' wasn't the only problem. "Where did you stash your baby supplies?" she asked. When Raven looked at her in confusion, she sighed. "You don't have any? Definitely not your baby. Do you even know how to change one? What's his name?"

Raven reach up to tug at her pigtail, looking abashed. "No, I don't have any supplies. Actually, I don't know the name or sex, either. The parents didn't give me a name before ... they died."

Yuka glanced searchingly at the redhead, then shrugged. "I guess since I'm the one with a baby brother, I get the job. Sayuri, do you have any cash available? My card's maxed out for the month."

/\

Raven and Sayuri watched as a grimacing Yuka rolled up the soiled diaper and threw it in the nearest park garbage can before returning to wipe down the now-revealed-to-be baby girl and wrap on the clean — and thoroughly disposable — diaper that had turned out not to cost a single yen. The terrified owner of the corner shop had taken one look at the armed Raven and the still-crying baby and insisted they take whatever they needed.

As the baby girl settled down and began happily gurgling at Yuka's tickling attentions from where it lay on the blanket-covered grass, Raven quietly asked, "What happened ta the Tendo dojo?"

Sayuri sighed. "The Tendos lost their home when they couldn't pay the inheritance tax after Tendo-san got drunk one night a few months after ... well, he walked in front of a truck. Kasumi, Nabiki and Akane moved into an apartment."

Raven stared at her in shock. Sure, Tendo Soun hadn't been at Ranma's eventual level, or even at Genma's when they'd first shown up. Sure, he had gotten a little soft and out of practice since the death of his wife. Still, he had been at least at Kuno's level, at the speed trucks could move on city streets he should have taken the hit and ... well, maybe not walked away, but slept it off, even — _Even if he was drunk?_ the redhead thought, remembering the time he'd gotten more than a little tipsy, the trouble he'd had moving, controlling himself, and considered trying to control ki when drunk. Okay, maybe that _was_ plausible.

Sayuri had been watching the play of emotions across Raven's face. "Why?" she asked. "I'd think that after what happened, they're the last people you'd want to see."

"I ... have business with Akane," Raven said shortly, voice suddenly as cold as when she'd first shown up at the school, and Sayuri gave her a sharp look as Yuka looked up from where she had been packing up the diaper bag.

"You're here to kill her, aren't you?" Sayuri enquired.

Yuka blanched as Raven nodded. "Yeah, I am. D'ya blame me?"

"No ... no, I don't. Neither will Akane, for that matter." Sayuri waved off Yuka's mew of protest. "You know it's true, Yuka — I don't know what Nabiki said to her after her suicide attempt, but you _know_ how she'll feel about it! If the price of getting Ranma out of hell is her life, she'll be happy to pay it."

Her face was stony, expressionless, but a slow tear from each eye trickled down her face, and Yuka finally nodded. "You're right," she reluctantly agreed.

Raven stared at the two girls for a long moment, then leaned over and gently scooped the baby up in her arms. "Thanks a lot fer helpin' with the kid," she said as she slung the diaper bag over a shoulder and stood up. "You girls go ahead an' get back ta school."

Sayuri drew in a shuddering breath. "You aren't going to ask us where Akane lives?" she asked.

"Naw, I don't want ya girls any more involved in this than ya already are," Raven replied. _Besides, I can just check any phone book or check with any a' the storekeepers Kasumi likes ta buy from._

She turned and started to walk away, only to pause when Sayuri called out, "Ranma!"

Without turning around, she said, "Yeah?"

"I can't wish you good luck, but ... kami bless."

Raven nodded acknowledgment without speaking, then strode off toward the park entrance.

The two girls silently watched her leave. As soon as the revenant was out of sight, Sayuri pulled out her cell phone, flipped it open, and hit the speed dial. "Nabiki, you called it, Ranma showed up at the school —" ... "Yes, it was definitely Ranma, and I managed to work in the tidbits you wanted me to tell him." ... "No, he was in his girl form —" ... "Yeah, _she's_ headed for you right now —" ... "_No_, we didn't tell her where you live now, but she won't have much trouble finding out." She quickly related what had just happened, then paused. "That's okay, you have a right to be a bit snappish. Good luck."

Closing her phone and turning back to her friend, she said, "Come on, Yuka, let's get back to school. We've done what we can, now all we can do is wait and pray for the best."

* * *

As always, thanks much for all the reviews!

**Vld:** The story will be complete, just plenty of room for a sequel, like my "Chained World" and "A New Future" stories. I'm a big believer in life going on, so there's always going to be loose ends, nothing ever gets neatly wrapped up.


	10. New Pieces on the Board

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

From a nearby tree on the grounds of the Hikawa shrine, a confused Urd watched Akane take yet another spill onto the grass, the youngest Tendo's feet knocked out from under her by a single sweep of her sensei's foot. The nineteen year old girl tucked into a roll as she went down, and fought to spin to face her short, muscular, bald tormentor circling about her as she came out of the roll on her feet, only to stumble and fight to keep standing as she staggered to the side for step after step, arms and bokken flailing for balance.

Her sensei didn't give her a chance to recover, stepping forward and casually kicking her in the chest, then following her down to land across her abdomen, a hand pinning the hand she held the bokken in to the ground as he laid his own bokken across her throat. "I would say you have a problem, little one," he chuckled.

She stared at him for a moment, a glare on her pasty, sweat-streaked face, then grudgingly agreed between gasps for breath. "I yield."

His chuckle turning into a bark of laughter, he rose to his feet and offered his student a hand. "Good of you, not that it was necessary," he said as he pulled her to her feet and took the bokken from her quivering hand. "You were well and truly screwed, and we're training for real combat, not tournament play. But enough kenjutsu for the day, time to practice your ofudas."

Akane nodded jerkily and turned toward the shrine's living quarters, only to stagger, her sensei catching her arm to hold her up.

Urd floated free of the branch she'd been sitting on, a slight frown on her face as she carefully maintained her obfuscation spell. She slipped into the quarters behind the pair, cursing her lack of practice since moving into the temple with her younger sisters and Keiichi — not much use for a spell to turn away mortal eyes when living with one.

Inside, the sensei led his pupil to the family room of the living quarters and helped her kneel before a low table before stepping over to a cabinet to pull out a stack of blank parchments, a brush, and a small metal tin. Placing them before the still gasping Tendo, he said, "Now, let's see how well your studies have stuck — the complete series to date, in reverse order."

"Of course, sensei," Akane replied, reaching out a still shaking hand to pick up and carefully open the metal tin. Picking up the brush beside the sheets, she pulled a parchment from the top of the stack, dipped the brush in the ink inside the tin and slowly started to write a string of kanji and symbols down the sheet only to have the writing spattered by ink drops from the quivering brush. Putting down the brush, the raven-haired girl lifted her hands and glared at them. When the shaking had decreased to a barely perceptible tremor, she again picked up the brush, dipped it in the ink, and started over.

Shifting around so that she could see what Akane was writing, the goddess's frown deepened along with her confusion — the ofuda the Tendo was creating, done right, would _definitely_ ruin the day of a low-level demon. Maybe even make things difficult for a mid-level. And in spite of the need to take things slow because of her exhaustion and shaky hands, Akane was doing it right.

But the Akane that was pushing through her near collapse level of exhaustion to kick out intricate calligraphy to give demons fits was _not_ the same girl that Urd had encountered when she'd read through Ranma's file.

Urd had actually enjoyed reading that file, at first — the chaos and excitement surrounding Ranma had struck a chord ... until she reached the marriage that should have been the happy ending and instead had been a complete fiasco. And then the final scene that had had her fighting not to lose Belldandy's excellent breakfast, especially when she read which demon Genma had bargained with. Then she finally noticed the time-stamp, and promptly lost her fight and the meal. A _year_ Ranma had hung on that wall, before Hild finally turned her loose like a coursing hound. And Akane had helped put "her" there.

_That_ girl had been caring and abusive in turns, always ready to assume the worst so long as it was Ranma she was doing the assuming about, outwardly confident in her skills as a martial artist and inwardly probably jealous of her fiancé's accomplishments. She hadn't been the worst offender in that file, but, between the abuse and the part she'd played in Ranma's death, she had earned her place on Raven's little list.

But _this_ girl ...

"Good, Akane-chan, _very_ good," the sensei — no, the _Shinto priest_ said, looking through the teenager's efforts. "Driven to the point of collapse, and every one of these would be at least useable and some of them powerful. You should have no trouble creating more so long as you're awake, so we'll switch to creating them under adverse environmental conditions — rock, sand, forest, grasslands, wind and rain when the weather cooperates. So, let's move on to recognition."

He shuffled the newly-created ofuda into a stack and set them to the side, then rose to fetch another stack from the cabinet. Kneeling across from his student, he set the new stack in front of him and turned over the first sheet to reveal an image that Urd instantly recognized — a figure that would look equally at home in a ball gown or a business suit, slender, young ... and with tattoos of a diamond between her eyes and two slashes on each cheek.

"Amaki," Akane promptly said. "A demoness 3rd class, limited, specializes in seduction and blackmail, no preference for either sex. The ofuda that can deal with her are too many to quickly list, but I'm unlikely to get the chance to use any of them as she can run faster than I can."

"Correct." The next image revealed a _very_ familiar image — Urd's white-haired mother, a puckish smile on Hild's seemingly innocent face.

"Hild, Queen of Hell. If she shows up I'm done: nothing I'll have will do more than irritate her, I can't run fast enough to escape her, and an appeal to higher powers is not likely to work within her own domain."

Urd missed the next image as she stared in stunned amazement at the girl she'd been prepared to despise. _She's planning an assault on Niflheim, she's planning to go after Ranma!_ Urd thought. _Not that she's going to need to, with Ranma — Raven — coming after her._

_But this makes no sense, what am _I_ doing here? I thought Father was just putting me through another 'teaching moment', but if Akane's actually repented, if she's doing what she can to fix what she did, if an Intervention is needed to save Akane's life when Raven finds her, it should be a Valkyrie here, not a system administrator — get the Valkyrie/Fury relationship off on the right foot, and all that. So why didn't Lind get this assignment, instead of me?_

A clatter startled the platinum blonde goddess 2nd class, jerking her from her circling ruminations. She looked up to find Akane on her feet ... barely, a miko helping her stay up on feet now covered in ink from the spilled tin. Akane was stammering an apology while the miko was assuring her that it no problem, but the priest's head whipped around to stare at Urd. Belatedly, the Norn of the Past realized her obfuscation spell had weakened while she was distracted and hastily focused to bring it back to full strength. Had he actually seen her, or just sensed something ... ?

But after a long moment, the priest simply nodded respectfully to her, then strode over to sweep his student up in his arms. "Relax, Akane-chan, no harm done. But let's get you down to the furo without tracking ink all through the temple. A good massage and a long soak, and then I'll give you your night's homework. Miyoko-chan, if you could go ahead and get the doors?"

The miko hurried ahead, followed by the priest with Akane, and a still-confused goddess bringing up the rear, not even smiling at the somewhat ludicrous scene of Akane being carried in the arms of the smaller man.

/oOo\

Skuld frowned. With her two sisters on assignment, Peorth filling a shift at the Earth Help Center, and Keiichi off at his job, this was the perfect time for some delicate work on Banpei's latest upgrade. Unfortunately, the circumstances leading to the empty temple were conspiring to distract her.

She _tried_ to get it right this time, really she did, but in spite of her best efforts the bare wires crossed just as they were about to slip into the two tiny holes in the new rocket launcher she was building for her guardian robot, Banpei. A shower of sparks shot out from the crossed wires, and the childlike goddess leaped back as two rockets roared out from their launchers and slammed into the ceiling, exploding in a gentle shower of sparkling confetti.

Diving for the doorway, she rolled out into the hall to slam into the opposite wall as the confetti drifted down to coat the floor, shining like so many nighttime stars. Sitting up and rubbing her head, she stared at the mess in her room and fought to keep from saying any of those words that goddesses just weren't supposed to use, however old they got, as she contemplated the long hours of excruciatingly precise cleanup that lay before her. On the other hand, that rant would feel _so_ good, and neither of her sisters was home...

"Skuld! There you are."

The youngest of the Norns looked up to see her middle sister walking briskly toward her, Lind beside her — though the lips of the famously stoic valkyrie were twitching suspiciously. But Skuld's nascent anger vanished, jaw dropping, as a wave of joyful hilarity washed over her from the tiny point of light her sister's hands were cupped beneath, centered between her breasts. "Belldandy, what's that? !" she gasped out.

"It's half a soul," the Norn of the Present replied, smiling fondly down at the friendly star.

"_Half_ a soul? But that's not possible, a soul is an infinite object — split it, and you have two infinite objects."

For a moment, Belldandy's smile faltered. "You're normally right, but there are some circumstances where the usual rules don't apply. Now come along, we need your help to find this little one a new home."

"_My_ help? But I don't know anything about assigning reincarnations yet! How can I help?" Skuld protested.

"You don't need to, this task is intrinsic to our natures," Belldandy assured her younger sister.

The two newcomers had walked up to the sitting child, and Lind glanced into Skuld's room and froze. "Skuld, is that ... that ... ?"

"Okay! Let's go, can't keep the baby waiting!" Skuld enthused, leaping to her feet and grabbing the other two goddesses' hands to pull them down the corridor. "Uh ... where are we going?"

Lind glanced over Skuld's head at Belldandy, her lips pressing into a firm line to keep from laughing out loud at the older sister's rueful smile.

"Let Lind take the lead, Skuld, she knows where we're going," Belldandy said with a sigh.

"Oh, right."

* * *

Wow, I've gotten as many reviews (or more) for this story as I have for stories twice its size so far, cool!

**Sephirotho:** Nabiki might have been a scheming, short-sighted, narcissistic bitch, but she did have some brains. So, she's unlikely to have Akane's friends actually outright lie to Raven - not having any idea what "Ranma" might be capable of now, that would be stupid. But give her some pieces to get Raven thinking before she even arrives, yeah.

**LadyKatherine29:** The Oh My Goddess! manga is some of the best out there, but don't start it expecting it to be much like this - while I've tried to keep the people in character (at least for the outward persona, the canon Hild doesn't have my Hild's hidden life, she is what she seems), the situations are very different, usually a lot more lighthearted and not bloody even when deadly serious.

**Vld:** Yeah, I rather like using Yuka and Sayuri when the opportunity arises. They're secondary characters in my "Yrthbound," "Second Chances" and "Unlikely Alliances" stories as well.


	11. And One Piece Off the Board

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Raven sat on the red brick steps to the entrance of the three-story apartment building, gently rocking the once again sleeping baby, the raven Thought perched in a nearby tree. Just as she had expected, it had been easy enough to find — she hadn't even had to threaten any of the shopkeepers that Kasumi usually patronized, simply checking out a phone book did it. But now that she was there, for the first time since Hild had taken her down from Rothgan's trophy wall and made her the offer, she didn't know what to _do_.

The redhead sighed at the thought. _No, ya know what ta do,_ she told herself. _It's simple enough — ya kill Akane and get yer new job as a Fury, so ya don't hafta go back up on Rothgan's wall. Ya just don't know if ya _should_ do it._

It had seemed so obvious that Akane's name belonged on her target list when Hild had asked. After all, it had been her refusal to back off and let her fiancé handle things, her attack in the middle of a lethal fight that had set Ranma up for Mousse's knives in the chest. After years together, she _still_ —

Raven's eyes were clenched shut, remembering the last living sight she'd had of her fiancée's face, Akane's features twisted by fury, eyes hot with anger — the way Akane had charged forward, tried to stop Rothgan from hauling her spirit off to Hell. _You know it's true, Yuka — I don't know what Nabiki said to her after her suicide attempt, but you _know_ how she'll feel about it! If the price of getting Ranma out of hell is her life, she'll be happy to pay it._ Sayuri's pain-filled words came back to her, and the redhead shook her head. _Fine. _Let_ her die, if she cares so much now!_

As if picking up her minder's dark thoughts, the baby in her arms awoke and started to fuss, drawing all of Raven's attention, her head bent down, cooing to the little one the same way Yuka had. She soon had her bundle gurgling up at her happily.

"Oh, my!"

Raven's head shot up at the familiar voice, the happy grin vanishing from her face at the sight of the eldest Tendo sister — the eldest Tendo, now that her father was dead. The young woman was standing a few yards away, one hand up over her mouth, the other holding a bag of groceries in a slackening grip. Like a shot, Raven was up from the step and caught the bag just as it dropped toward the pavement.

Kasumi barely noticed, her eyes fixed on the redhead that had so brutally died while the woman that could have restrained her youngest sister had been away from the house enjoying a movie. Against her will her gaze shifted to the familiar katana hilt showing over the revenant's shoulder. "Are ... are you here for Akane?" she asked in a shaky voice.

Raven nodded without speaking, face grim.

"I see." Then the baby started fussing, Kasumi's eyes dropped at the sound, and she found herself falling victim to a giggle fit: here she was looking at a grim Avenger back from the dead, sword hilt showing over her shoulder — with a bag of baby supplies hanging from the other shoulder, a cranky baby complaining in the crook of one arm and a bag of groceries in the other, a panicky expression on her face.

_It's getting close to time for Akane to come home._ In an instant, the giggles stopped. Sighing, Kasumi relieved the redhead of the baby, cooing to the bundle. The bundle instantly quieted, and Kasumi giggled again as Raven rolled her eyes in disgust. The long earth-haired girl stepped past the redhead to unlock the door into the apartment building. "Come on in," she invited resignedly.

/\

"Tadaima!" Kasumi called out as she led Raven into the apartment, baby still in her arms and Thought on her shoulder. Raven glanced around as she slipped off her outside shoes, then followed Kasumi out of the small hallway to find herself in a combination kitchen/dining room. She walked over to put the bag of groceries on the counter of the kitchen area while Thought fluttered over to perch on the back of one of the chairs around the table.

Kasumi, you're back!" Nabiki called back. "I got a call from Sayuri, Ranma visited the school, he's on his way here," she continued as she stepped into the room from a door beside the kitchen area. "What should I tell Akane — ?" She broke off, gaping at the sight of the redhead right next to her, turning away from the kitchen counter.

"Yeah, I should'a figured she'd call," the revenant said, then turned, face hardening as Nodoka stepped out of another door across the room and froze at the sight of her child. "Saotome-san," Raven greeted her, voice leeched of all emotion. She looked her mother over, eyes widening slightly. In the light of day, upright rather than curled up on a bed, Nodoka's pregnant state was obvious — and advanced, at least six months along. "Ya sure didn't wait long before tryin' fer a replacement," Raven said, voice shaking slightly.

"Ranma —" Nodoka managed to get out, only to break off as the redhead turned back to the Tendo sisters, pointedly ignoring her.

Kasumi glanced sympathetically toward the older woman, then down at the baby in her arms as it started fussing again. "I think somebody's hungry," she suggested.

"Oh, right." Raven swung the baby bag from her shoulder to the table, pulled out the baby formula and bottle, then paused, unsure of what to do next.

With a sigh, Kasumi handed the baby back to the redhead and grabbed the supplies. A few minutes later she had the bottle ready, and took the now crying baby back from a desperate Raven. A moment later the cries stopped as the baby happily sucked at the bottle's nipple. "So, Ranma, is it a boy or a girl? What's its name? Where did you pick it up?" Kasumi asked, smiling down at her armful.

"Don't call me that," Raven replied coldly, face hardening. "Since Genma and Nodoka decided ta just throw me away, they — she can keep the name, too. Call me Raven." Ignoring Nodoka's gasp, she continued, "I don't know what her name is, I didn't ask Mousse an' Shampoo before I killed them."

The others stared in shock at the redhead. Finally, Nabiki asked, "So, what are you going to do with your victory spoils?"

"I ..." Raven, paused, face softening into confusion. "I don't know. I was gonna ask Ukyo to raise her, but ..." She shrugged as the others flinched. "I'll think a' somethin'."

Kasumi's mind raced. She owed Raven for the way she'd failed him ... her ... and maybe if she offered, when Akane got home ... "I'll do it." she asserted. Then glanced around and smiled for a moment in the stunned silence.

"But, Kasumi, I ... Akane ..." Raven managed to get out.

Kasumi sighed, eyes, dropping to the little one in her arms. "Raven ... Ranma, what-t-t-ev-v-v-ver ..." Breaking off to fight for control, she continued after a moment, "Whatever happens between you and Akane, I owe you."

"But, ya didn't do any —"

"That's right," the eldest Tendo interrupted. "When Akane was jumping to conclusions and taking out her frustrations on you, when Nabiki was selling candid photos of your girl side to perverts," — beside her, Nabiki flinched — "when the fathers were hatching bizarre plans to marry the two of you, I did nothing. I'd like to try and make it up a little. Besides, it doesn't sound like you have a better idea."

Raven stared at her, thinking furiously, but finally shrugged. "You're right, I don't," she admitted. "But can ya afford her? Don't babies cost money?"

"We will manage, won't we, Nabiki?" Kasumi asked her sister, voice once again serene.

Nabiki's gaze switched back and forth between her older sister and the revenant, before falling to the baby in her sister's arms. Her mind flashed back over the "harmless" pictures she'd sold, the auction when Ranma had briefly been her fiancé, the blowout at the wedding ... and an Akane covered in Ranma's blood kneeling on the ground, holding her fiancé's flame-haired decapitated head in her arms like Kasumi was holding the baby now; and the night when the blood spattered about the dojo's kitchen had been Akane's, when she'd tried to kill herself with one of Kasumi's kitchen knives — thank all the kami she'd chosen one that needed sharpening, and had tried to cut across the wrist instead of lengthwise. Nabiki's ears echoed with the memory of Akane's throat-ripping shriek of pain when the demon had faded out of sight with his translucent, naked, redheaded prize.

"S-Sure thing, Kas-s-sumi, the rugrat won't lack for anyth-thing, I'll s-see t-t-to it," she finally managed to stammer out.

"Good, I knew I could count on you," Kasumi approved, giving her sister a sad smile. Then taking a deep breath, she said, "Raven, it will be little while before Akane gets home, so you might as well relax. The family room is in here." She picked up the bag of baby supplies from the table and walked toward the door Nodoka had stepped out of.

* * *

Yeah, Akane isn't the only one that's been run over by reality, it's been all the Tendo sisters.

And more reviews to give me my fix! ^_~

**Vld:** Yeah, Hiroshi and Daisuke as well, though I haven't used them much in my stories. Ranma has plenty of "supporting" cast without them, Akane not so much. And if you're getting it right about half the time, guessing where my stories are going, I must be doing something right - can't be too predictable, after all, or you'll get bored.

**Poetheather1:** And the flipside of what I just wrote to Vld, it's nice to know a writer well enough to be able to trust him, isn't it? There are writers whose books I often can't finish without checking the endings, first. John Ringo, for one. It'll be interesting to see how much else you get right.

**LadyKatherine29:** Unlike many, Akane is my own personal preference for Ranma out of the various fiancees. That doesn't mean that she doesn't have issues, though. They all do, really, the only difference is how and how much. Though my preference for Akane hasn't kept me from setting up Nabiki as the fiancee in one story, and both Kasumi and Akane with Ranma in another.


	12. Hymn of Breaking Strain

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Raven shifted uncomfortably where she sat in the Tendo apartment's small family room. It wasn't that the couch was uncomfortable, it wasn't — the sisters (Nabiki, probably) had found a decent place when they'd been forced to sell the family compound. But each of the room's occupants — Kasumi and her new baby sharing the couch with Raven, Nabiki on the other side of Kasumi, Nodoka in an easy chair next to Raven — was in her own world, no one even considering turning on the television Thought was perched on across the room against the wall beside the open sliding door leading to a bedroom. The silence was getting downright oppressive.

Finally, the revenant couldn't take it any longer. Besides, there were things she wanted to know. "So, what happened after I was murdered?" she asked, voice harsh.

Beside her, Kasumi paused in gently rocking the sleepy baby, while Nabiki stiffened in her armchair to the side. The two exchanged glances with each other and Nodoka in her own armchair.

Finally, Kasumi sighed. "The police ruled it an accidental death during a sparring session with real weapons," she started, "and Akane didn't take it well. She ... she ..."

"She did what she'd always done," Nabiki said in a harsh voice, taking over when Kasumi paused in a search for the right words. "She blamed everyone _but_ her for what happened.

"Ukyo rushed over as soon as she heard about it and we lied through our teeth about the details, just as we did with the police. Akane was still in shock so she didn't say anything to contradict us, so when we put all the blame on Ryoga and the Amazons, Ukyo bought it. The Amazons were gone before the police ruling — they were gone the next morning, in fact — but that still left Ryoga around, sort of.

"The next time Pig Boy showed up at the dojo, Akane called Ukyo, and the two ambushed him. You can imagine how _that_ worked out." Nabiki grimaced. "All brute force and no imagination — I told them about his curse, all they needed were a few water balloons, but instead they had to make it a stand-up fight.

"So once they got their asses kicked, I decided to do it right — I called Akari and told her how you died. She rushed straight into town to talk to us personally. I don't know what she said to Ryoga later, if anything, but she wasn't very happy with him when she left."

"Yeah, she talked to him, told him she didn't want ta see him again," Raven interjected. "He blamed me for it when we met, a' course. And you're right about the water balloons, used 'em myself."

The room went still, Nodoka and the Tendos again exchanging uneasy glances. "Anyway," Nabiki finally continued, "Akari said something to Akane before she left. I don't know what, but it shook her. Ukyo's suicide shook her even more. And then ..." She took a deep breath, fighting to keep her voice even. "Then, father got drunk and walked in front of a truck, and she broke — went from saying none of it was her fault to saying it was _all_ her fault. She quit going to school, hardly ever left her room, refused to talk to anybody, spent most of her time staring at the wall, had to be told to clean up occasionally ... finally, the night before we had to move out of the dojo she grabbed one of Kasumi's knives and tried t-t-to cut her wrists."

She broke off her tale, turning her head to stare at the nearby tree visible through the glass door leading to the balcony as she fought for control, memories of Akane screaming at her, blood splashing her, the walls and cupboards as her younger sister tossed her around like a ragdoll, fighting to keep an increasingly slippery grip on her younger sister's wrists, keep her from using the knife more than she already had, until Akane finally went limp, unconscious from loss of blood...

Finally drawing a shuddering breath, Nabiki continued, "I made sure I was by her bed in the hospital when she woke up, and asked her if she was a coward as well as a spoiled brat — you were stuck in hell, it was _partly_ her fault, and her response was to try to kill herself instead of rescuing you. She eventually agreed with me, so while she recovered I found a sensei to train her, Hino-sensei, the priest of the Hikawa Shrine. Since then, every waking minute that her sensei hasn't insisted she take off to relax has been spent studying and training, getting ready to go after you."

She turned to face Raven, the revenant shocked at the sight of two slow tears slowly sliding down the cheeks of an otherwise coldly expressionless face. "And now, here you are. I don't want to know what kind of hell you've been living through, but don't think that Akane hasn't been living in her own outpost."

Raven stared at her, shaken to the core by the Ice Queen's naked pain, searching for something — anything — to say, only to twitch at the sound of someone opening the front door of the apartment. "Tadaima!" they heard a weary-sounding Akane call out from the dining room.

For a moment, the family room's occupants all sat in frozen silence, until Nabiki sighed and slumped in her seat. "We're in here!" she called out in a dull voice.

/\

Perched in the tree outside the Tendo apartment, the Daimakaicho of Niflheim was feeling increasingly desperate as she listened to the conversation taking place inside. The fact that they were talking at all was bad enough — the last thing a vengeance-driven spirit needed was to _talk_ to his targets, or anyone connected to them other than to ask for directions — but the story Nabiki had started telling was even worse. _Damn it, why couldn't Raven have simply returned to Niflheim when she learned Ukyo was dead?_ It might have been stretching things a bit, but Hild would have been happy to rule that Raven's request to be sent to Uc-chan's meant the trip wasn't part of her test and send her to a spot just outside the Hikawa Shrine. And ...

Hild glanced around. She was sensing someone — someone both demonic and divine, and there was only one person that fit that category that was likely to be here — and there was Akane, trudging down the street toward the corner entrance to the apartment building, the katana whose hilt showed over her shoulder radiating its own enchantments ... including an obfuscation charm. But most of Hild's attention was on the youngest Tendo's companion, and her heart turned over at the sight of her daughter floating along above the youngest Tendo. _Wonderful, just what I needed to top off this fiasco, some vituperation from Urd while I send Raven back to Rothgan's wall..._ Though if Kami-sama had assigned their daughter to this case, she'd know what would happen to Raven if she failed her vengeance quest. Just how would she take the redheaded revenant's failure? Hild felt a flicker of hope at the thought — maybe she'd actually get _something_ out of this total fubar.

Doing her best to suppress the flicker — it wouldn't be the first time she'd hoped to at least start to mend things with her daughter, and every time before those hopes had been dashed — Hild dropped her obfuscation shield slightly, just enough to get Urd's attention without revealing herself to Akane.

Urd jerked and hastily looked around as she sensed her mother's presence, catching the movement when Hild waved to her. Urd's eyes widened, and as Akane entered the apartment building the platinum blonde half-goddess floated up to join her mother. "What are you doing here, Hild?" she growled.

"What, no happy greeting for your mother? How disrespectful!" Urd chided, a menacing undertone beneath her lighthearted rebuke, then shrugged. "I'm here for the same reason I imagine you are, to watch the rise of my latest Fury."

Urd opened her mouth, a hot retort on the tip of her tongue, when a joyful shout yanked their attention back to the view through the balcony door to the Tendo family room.

/\

Akane trudged down the street toward home (her _new_ home, not the one she'd grown up in, that she'd helped throw away along with the fiancé and father she'd helped kill). Even with the hot soak and massage after her training, she was going to be _very_ happy to get off her feet. The katana on her back that Hino-sensei insisted she carry except when asleep or in the shower (and then close to hand) was protected from the notice of everyone around her by obfuscation charms, but it was as solid as ever — and didn't work well with seats on trains and buses, especially when crowded. As a result, she'd been on her feet for the entire ride back. The cross body sling bag full of books her sensei had loaned her slung over one shoulder didn't help, either.

_Stop whining, Akane,_ she thought as she unlocked the front door to the apartment building, and headed for the stairwell for the trudge to the third floor (the lack of an elevator was a major reason for the low rent). _You'll have plenty of time to sit once you get home, while you study those books._ She wasn't looking forward to puzzling out the texts at all, but it was doing wonders for her reading comprehension in kanji and katakana.

As she climbed the stairs, for a moment her thoughts turned to her sensei. Hino-sensei played the simple priest (if somewhat perverted, with any pretty young woman but her), but with the skill set he had he _had_ to have led an exciting life when he was younger, and she resolved again to try to get him to tell her about it — it might actually help when she left on her own mission. _Yeah, right, like you believe _that_!_ she thought, unlocking the apartment's front door.

"Tadaima!" she called as she stepped into the apartment, pausing to slip off her shoes and step into a pair of house slippers. She frowned — there hadn't been an immediate response, and one of her sisters should be home. And Nodoka had been visiting when she left in the morning, so she should still be here, it seemed like she'd been spending more time in the sisters' apartment than her rebuilt home with her bastard of a husband. Of course, that descriptive might explain it, Akane was surprised that woman hadn't hinted that she simply move in. With Kasumi insisting she and Akane share a bed, there was an extra bedroom.

"We're in here!" Akane heard Nabiki call from the family room as she swung her sling bag off her shoulder and placed it on the dining room table. She felt a flicker of concern — her sister sounded ... tired, drained. Akane had been so focused on her training and studies, she had trouble remembering any particular moment separated from the general haze of daily life since she'd arrived home from her first training session with Hino-sensei. Kasumi had insisted they eat out during her mandatory rest days, and there had been a movie they had dragged her to...

Akane walked over to open doorway to the family room and stepped through. "Hey, sis, why don't we go see a movie this week —"

She slammed to a stop at the sight of the cute, overendowed redhead rising from the couch. "Ranma?" she whispered. "RANMA!" And she was charging forward, grabbing the smaller girl, whirling them around in what little room there was in the middle of the room, laughing as tears rolled down her cheeks.

But after a bit she realized that other than her laughter, the room was deathly quiet, the girl in her arms stiff, her return embrace hesitant. Akane ceased spinning them around and stepped back to arm's length, her hands on Ranma's shoulders.

Now that she'd calmed down, new senses she'd acquired under the lash of Hino-sensei's training could make themselves heard, and what they were saying was disquieting: the girl before her was _dead_. Not only was she not breathing, but there wasn't a trace of ki. Instead, what the youngest Tendo was holding was a supernatural entity of real power — spirit given substance. An embodied spirit unable to look her in the eye.

A whisper of motion caught her attention, and Akane looked up over the other girl's shoulder to find a raven watching her from its perch on top of the television. The youngest Tendo's breath caught at the sight — the raven was not just a power, but a Power! "Ranma, what raven is that?" she asked quietly.

The redhead sighed and finally lifted her gaze to look up into Akane's eyes. "Don't call me Ranma, my name's Raven now," she said equally quietly. "I dunno what he is, but his name's Thought."

Akane sucked in a breath at the name, shocked to her core. Closing her eyes, she slowly breathed out, seeking calm before focusing again on the other girl's face. "Ran — Raven, you didn't escape somehow from Rothgan's Wall, did you?"

Raven shrugged Akane's hands off her shoulders and turned away, shaking her head. "No, I didn't. Hild-sama came an' took me down, made me an offer."

"What kind of offer?"

Raven hesitated for a moment. "Ta become one a' her Furies," she finally replied with another shrug.

_A Fury ... !_ "And I'm on the list for your test, aren't I?"

Raven nodded jerkily. "Yeah, ya are."

"Good, I belong on it," Akane said bitterly, feeling Raven stiffen as she stepped up to wrap her arms around the redhead from behind. Over Raven's shoulder, her gaze swept the other women in the room: Nodoka sitting stiffly in the deep armchair she normally hated thanks to her advancing pregnancy, tears streaming down her cheeks; Nabiki stonefaced where she slumped back in the couch, one arm over Kasumi's shaking shoulders. The oldest sister was trying not to break down into sobs, her arms clutching a ... baby? _Where did _that_ come from? Later, if ever, not important right now._ "I was going to probably get myself killed trying to get you out of there when I was as ready as I could be," she continued, "so this just makes things easier all around. There's a park nearby where we can take care of it. Can I take the time to write a letter for Sayuri and Yuka, first? I owe them a decent farewell after the way I've mostly ignored them the past year."

For long moments Raven simply stood frozen in place, until her shoulders abruptly slumped. Sighing, she twisted in her former fiancée's arms to pull her into a mutual embrace, a real one this time, and Akane luxuriated in the feel of the arms about her pressing her against the spirit's still-overly abundant chest. Finally, Raven broke the hug to hold Akane out at arm's length, gaze fixed on the taller girl's face as if she was memorizing every line. She shook her head. "Naw, don't worry 'bout it, I'm not gonna kill ya."

Akane stared in shock at Raven's calm face, and suddenly she was in front of the open door to the dining room, katana steady in her hands. "No! You are _not_ going back up on that wall, you're not!" she snarled.

"I d-d-don't think it'll come ta that," Raven said, smiling tremulously. "I'll just hafta ask Hild-sama if she has any other jobs she'd like me ta take, she's bound ta have somethin' fer someone as good as I am."

"Right, like she did this past year, while you were hanging on Rothgan's Wall, waiting for the next time he felt like raping you?" She ignored the cries and sucked in breath of the other women, eyes locked on the revenant. "Not a chance. No, you have an easy way to avoid that, and you're taking it!"

Raven glanced around at the shocked expressions of Nabiki, Kasumi, and her ... and Nodoka. "I take it ya never told them the details a' what was happenin' ta me," she said, then looked back at Akane with a familiar cocky grin that made the raven-haired girl's heart turn over. "And ya think ya can stop me from just walkin' out? Not a chance, even if I didn't just take the balcony ... and there are guys down in Hell that can handle me like a baby, ya wouldn't have a chance. Give it up, Akane, please," she finished, voice going soft. "I'll think a' somethin', just have yerself a good life, and I'll show up on yer doorstep someday."

"No, I won't!" Akane insisted, even as her thoughts raced. Ran — Raven was right, damn — curse it. Thanks to the months of hard training she was bound to be better than Raven expected, but — "Raven, I challenge you!"

"What?" Raven asked in confusion.

"I challenge you. If I win, you kill me. If you win, I'll give up any attempt to rescue you. Oh, and the duel is with these," she added, waggling her katana. "Ranma never refused a challenge, does Raven?"

Raven stared at her, confusion replaced by a thoughtful look as she considered the offer. Akane kept her gaze fixed on the redhead, trying to ignore the bitter hope dawning on the faces of Nabiki and Kasumi watching from the couch.

"All right, you're on," Raven finally said, and Akane relaxed and straightened as she lifted her katana over her shoulder to slide it down into its sheath. "Good!" she said with a happy smile. "Just let me get that letter written, and we can take it to the park." _And I can show you just how good I've gotten, over these past months — probably not as good as you, but good enough for a creative 'mistake'. I'm sorry, Nabiki, Kasumi, but I can't let this work out as you want, not with the price Ran — Raven would have to pay for it._

* * *

The chapter title comes from the poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling.

**ijpowers92:** For how long the story is, depends on how you count it. My original plan was that after the confrontation in the park I would write one more longish chapter as an epilogue and call it good. Then a number of comments at Anime Addventures convinced me to go into more detail, and I've suffered the worst scene creep in my short fanfic-writing career. the result is that the "epilogue" now increases the size of the story by 50% with two more chapters needed to _finally_ finish it off, I seriously considered spinning it off into its own story before simply deciding to go with a heads up that the breakpoint is essentially a "Part II," and I probably won't be quite finished with the last chapter when the postings here catch up, as I expected to easily be the case.

**Vld:** For my judgment of my own work, I rank myself technically as a solid Class II (good enough that technical imperfections only occasionally get in the way of the story) perhaps sometimes shading into Class I (the ones that IMHO hit professional quality with a little proofreading, like Ozallos). Where I wonder sometimes is in the actually storytelling, and I suppose that is more of a matter of taste. (My other classes are Class III, stories where technical issues are glaring sometimes to the point of being obnoxious, but the story is good enough that I'm willing to put up with it - sometimes I'll actually copy and paste them to Word to edit out the imperfections; and Class IV, where the story isn't interesting enough to make up for all the technical mistakes.)


	13. The Friend Across the Field

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

In a quiet corner of a park close to the Tendo apartment, sitting in a tree overlooking Akane and Raven as they took their positions across from each other, a Hild firmly invisible to mortal eyes didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Actually, that wasn't true, she knew exactly what to do — maintain her whimsically sardonic, faintly malicious smile as her fuming daughter took a similar seat several branches over. What Hild didn't know was which she _wanted_ to do. In life Ranma had proven himself to be the quintessential chaos magnet, renowned for the bizarre situations he found himself in, and in death Raven was proving no different.

_Though this situation is proving more serious than most,_ the Daimakaicho of Niflheim thought as she watched the two opponents bow to each other and take up defensive stances, katanas sloped toward each other in their two-handed grips. It was obvious, to her at least, what Akane hoped to accomplish, and Hild silently saluted her for it. Whatever happened to her, the raven-haired girl's destination was not in doubt — unlike the others on Raven's little list, Hild had no doubt that she wouldn't be seeing _her_ arriving in her realm for at least another lifetime. Nor would the two Tendo sisters watching from a score of yards away, for that matter, Nabiki with one arm around her older sister and Kasumi clutching her new baby. The middle Tendo would have been a real possibility, driven by both her previous greedy cynicism and newfound bitterness at how badly things were turning out. But with a sister to support and a new daughter to both support and help raise — no, she'd been firmly turned away from her previous self-destructive and probably short road to Hell.

Hild glanced again over toward her daughter, the mother's emotions tilting toward appalled amusement — now, there was someone else confused by how things had turned out. Everything had seemed clear enough, other than the question of why a systems administrator had been assigned to field work (Urd hadn't said, but Hild suspected her former husband was up to something — one thing that hadn't changed over the millennia was that he liked his little games). All Urd had had to do was watch over Akane, and intervene in the likely event that Raven was going to be able to kill her. That would typically be an assignment for a Valkyrie, but Urd had more than enough power and experience to deal with a simple revenant — or, since this had been Ranma, to keep the revenant away from Akane until reinforcements could arrive. But now, with Raven fighting to _keep_ Akane from getting killed, the entire purpose of Urd's presence had been turned on its head and the demon/goddess hybrid was obviously trying to figure out what to do now.

Then a clash of steel on steel yanked Hild's attention back to revenant and mortal, as Raven initiated the first strike.

/\

Raven stepped back from her bow to Akane, falling naturally into the defensive stance he had learned years before, from the cursory training his father had insisted on. Of course, when it came to martial arts — or any other physical training — 'cursory' for Ranma had meant something very different than everyone else...

Even as the Saotome family blade came up, Raven's eyes found Akane's, seeking the passionate fury her former fiancée had always brought to her fights, both her strength and her weakness ... and found nothing but calm, confident determination. The angry girl Ranma had known was nowhere to be found. _Why couldn't she have been like this when I — !_ Raven cut the thought off. It was pointless, and a distraction. What mattered was that, here and now, there would be no winner in the contest of wills that often preceded duels, because Akane was refusing to engage. She simply waited through a long minute for Raven to open the dance.

_Okay, let's get this over with._ The redhead flowed forward, determined to end the fight in one overpowering rush ... and almost lost right then and there as Akane's own blade engaged Raven's, the Tendo _twisted_, and almost ripped the Saotome blade from Raven's grasp. Raven held on to her katana, but at the price of finding the blade badly out of position. A desperate leap back left one sleeve fluttering in the light breeze, slit open from wrist to elbow.

_Whoa, she _has_ been trainin'! This's gonna be harder than I thought._ Raven finally really _looked_ at her opponent, and was impressed by what she saw. Akane had been good with a katana before — not in Ranma's league, but good — and from the smooth way she moved as she came back on guard, her perfectly relaxed stance, the quiet assurance she radiated, it was obvious Nabiki hadn't been exaggerating about what Akane had been doing for much of the time Ranma had spent hanging on Rothgan's wall.

For another long minute the two stared at each other. Suddenly, Akane softly smiled — the same smile that had always made Ranma's heart turn over in his (or her) chest — and her katana twitched, the point falling slightly off position, beckoning. Raven found herself smiling back even as she accepted the invitation. Once again she flowed confidently forward into the attack, if much more carefully, and Akane backed up, steel ringing on steel again and again as she parried a barrage of strikes.

/\

As she watched Akane step back again and again under her former fiancé's constant push, Urd shifted uncomfortably on her branch and once again wondered what she was doing there. Normally, she'd have been much closer, hovering invisibly over the fight and ready to intervene the instant it appeared that Raven was about to successfully kill an innocent victim. No, that wasn't quite right — normally _Lind_ or another of her fellow Valkyries would be doing the hovering, and Urd would read a report on the outcome on her monitor. She was a systems administrator, for heaven's sake! She was supposed to be keeping Yggdrasil running smoothly and watching for possible kinks in reality, not watching a revenant duel with her chosen victim. _At least you can't say Raven's _playing_ with Akane,_ the platinum-haired hybrid thought despairingly. Raven had to be the _oddest_ revenant and Fury candidate she'd ever heard of, and Urd wondered what Lind would make of a Fury candidate fighting to _keep_ her presumed prey from being killed. _Mother must be loving this._

She glanced over at her tanned, platinum-haired mother sitting on a nearby branch and leaning back against the tree trunk, uncaring what the rough bark might be doing to the luxurious (and barely there) miniskirt and single-button jacket she was wearing, the raven-shaped Power that was Thought perched next to her. Hild's attention was focused on the fight below. Feeling her gaze, the Daimakaicho lifted her eyes to meet her daughter's, and the whimsical, dark-edged smile that she usually showed to the world broadened slightly before she sighed dramatically. "Don't worry, dearest, it looks like you'll be able to return to your sisters soon enough — Raven's figured out that humans just can't match a spirit's endurance. It seems I won't be gaining a new Fury, after all. How ... disappointing."

Urd opened her mouth for her typical scathing rebuke, but paused. Something about what her mother had just said didn't ring true. No, not what she had said, but how she had said it — there was actually a hint of sorrow in her tone, regret in her face, that Urd had never seen before. What ... ?

Hild's eyebrow rose and she giggled slightly at the sight of her daughter sitting there with her mouth open, then turned her gaze back toward the circling fighters below only to pause, eyes almost imperceptibly widening in a look that screamed shock (for the Daimakaicho, at least).

Urd followed her mother's gaze and froze at the sight of three new goddesses, under their own glamour: Lind, and the other two Norns. But what were they doing _here_? Belldandy had her own assignment ... why was she holding her hands cupped up in front of her chest? Were her hands glowing?

The Norn of the Past glanced back over at her mother, to find the temporary shock the Daimakaicho had shown vanished back into her more typical cheerful superiority. "Well, this is getting to be quite a party," Hild murmured. "Shall we join the gatecrashers?"

Before Urd could respond, she caught a hint of motion out of the corner of her eye and whipped around to stare as Lind flashed across the park toward the dueling pair, her signature poleax angled ahead and her long white epaulet strips and split coattail whipping in the wind of her passage.

/\

Akane was gasping for air as she frantically backed up under her former fiancé's constant assault, desperately parrying strike after thrust after slash with aching arms, shaking her head slightly to try to keep sweat from running into her eyes and cursing herself for forgetting to tie on a headband in the rush to get this over with. She had miscalculated badly, not taking into account Raven's new nature as a spirit — more specifically the fact that she no longer tired the way a human would, even one with the energy reserves of a high-powered martial artist. Akane had been expecting the usual breaks between clashes, and they hadn't been happening. Instead, Raven had been pushing the pace brutally, though unfortunately she hadn't been as careless as her first attack, and Akane's control was getting shaky at best. She'd blown her best chance when she hadn't _quite_ pulled off her initial disarm, she'd already had one tumble while backing up, and she had no idea how she'd managed to fend off her opponent while regaining her feet.

_Of course, it _could_ have something to do with the fact that Ranma — Raven — isn't actually trying to kill me,_ Akane thought, one ear ringing with the sound of skirling steel from her latest parry, a lock of her hair blowing away on the breeze. Of course, if the two had been fighting a real (or rather typical) life-and-death duel, it would have been over with Raven's initial rush and Akane gutting her like a pig and sending the overconfident revenant back to the Hell she'd come from. And if by some miracle the redhaired revenant had avoided the price of her carelessness, Akane would have been dead within a minute of the duel's resumption — she'd improved over the last year, but not enough to take on the killer of Saffron even with her chosen weapon.

Not that the fact that neither girl was actually trying to kill the other meant they weren't trying to _hurt_ each other — Akane was bleeding from at least half a dozen nicks and cuts, and Raven had almost lost a hand. She was a spirit, after all — she'd get it back, and she only needed one hand to take the life that would make her a Fury. As it was, the fight had become a single long, wearying, pain-filled engagement. The bleeding alone was a problem; if Akane didn't make her move soon eventual blood loss would make her too lightheaded to continue, and Nodoka wouldn't have to deliver the letter Akane had left with her for Sayuri and Yuka. (In the end, the Saotome matriarch had been unable to bring herself to endure more of her former child's cold indifference, or watch either one girl she cared for die or another be doomed to return to serial rape.)

Akane twisted her arms to one side, avoiding another nick on her wrist (as it was, her grip was getting too slippery from blood from the first one), and Raven spun out of the way of her feeble counterstrike and flowed back to the attack — and Akane felt her fading confidence jump. The youngest Tendo might be outclassed by her opponent in sheer innate ability, but Akane had more _training_, and that gave her an advantage she didn't think Raven realized she had. _You're getting predictable, love,_ she thought, hiding a wistful smile as she resumed her backward dance. She was hitting her last legs, Raven had recovered the confidence she temporarily lost with her initial near-disaster, but the duel had gone on long enough, and it was time.

Sliding to one side, Akane flicked the tip of her katana toward the inside of Raven's thigh. An actual hit there would have no effect at all, spirits didn't have femoral veins or arteries, but Raven still remembered being human and had been reacting accordingly for the entire duel. She did this time as well. The Saotome katana dropped to knock Akane's aside before the spirit's riposte streaked toward her side, was knocked aside and up, came whipping back — and Akane smiled as her blade intersected it, guided it up, and she raised her chin to give the blade a clear shot at her throat. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as her gaze met Raven's, the revenant's eyes widening in shocked realization of Akane's final gambit. _Sorry, _Ranma_, but you're Hell's newest Fury, after —_

A flash of steel cut off her view of her love's face with a clang, and Akane staggered back to stare at the massive axe head that had intercepted the Saotome blade inches away from killing her. Unbelieving, her eyes tracked down the long shaft to stare at the crouching white-clad, blue-haired woman braced as if she had just slid to a halt, holding the poleax at the horizontal as if the massive weapon was light as a feather. "What the hell are you doing? !" Akane shrieked as the old anger slammed through her, leaving her suddenly shaking even as she desperately sucked air into her lungs. "I'd almost —"

"Almost paid the ultimate sacrifice to save the girl you love, warrior, I know," the interloper said calmly, straightening and raising her poleax in a salute before grounding the butt of the shaft.

As her initial shock (and her breathing) eased, the raven-haired girl took in the details of the newcomer, eyes widening and anger bleeding away at the sight of the apparently tattooed circles on forehead and cheek, the raw confident divine power she was radiating. Movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she shifted her gaze to see another woman and apparently a barely pubescent girl approaching — both also with facial tattoos and a presence that was stunning in its sheer holy radiance.

Tendo Akane slowly sank to her knees.

* * *

And there's part of the answer for Akane's future, but it isn't over yet... ^_~

The title comes from the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint. Belisarius, one of the most famous generals in history (though perhaps not as saintly as the novels portray), while on a spying mission forges a close friendship with Rana Sanga, one of the best generals of a truly evil empire. They later meet on the battlefield, and Rana Sanga comes within a hair's breadth of gutting him like a fish before Belisarius's bodyguards intervene.

Thanks much for the reviews! Yeah, I know I don't have many replies like usual, we're getting close to what would have been the end and is now pretty much the end of Part One. It's a bit difficult to reply now without revealing where the story's headed.

**Vld:** I have a slight soft spot for the Kuno siblings. Yeah, in canon they're both nutcases, but they're _nutcases_. That's quite a bit different from Ryoga, Mousse and Shampoo, who are pretty much sane, just self-centered and selfish (though in Shampoo's case you can argue she's just trying to follow tribal law).


	14. Mutual Sacrifice

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Nabiki could feel her older sister trembling where her arm circled Kasumi's waist, hand resting on her thigh, as the two watched Raven force their little sister back and back, the steel-on-steel skirling sound of one frantic parry by Akane after another hitting their ears. Even the beginning-to-fret baby clamped in the oldest Tendo's arms couldn't distract her from the scene. If Nabiki knew her sister, Kasumi would be desperately hoping that Akane would somehow win and hating herself because of what that would mean for Ranma — Raven, rather.

Nabiki hadn't been hopeful or conflicted, she'd been resigned. She'd had a good idea what her little sister was up to — suicide by opponent. She'd never believed Akane's assertions that she actually had a chance to get Ranma out of Hell, and now the demon hunter-in-training had simply moved that suicide up to now.

But while Nabiki wasn't a martial artist like her little sister, she _had_ been a bookie, betting on the fights that regularly erupted in her home ward, which meant she had to be able to judge the capabilities of the fighters she was betting on or go broke. And _that_ meant that she was following the fight much better than she suspected her older sister was, and her own resignation had been fading, warring with her own growing sick hope — and suddenly it was over, Raven's blade blocked inches from Akane's throat by the head of a massive polearm in the hands of a strange white-clad, tattooed woman that had come out of nowhere.

Akane was screaming something at the newcomer, but Nabiki couldn't understand a word — it was suddenly all she could do to stay on her feet, and she found herself sweat-drenched and shaking, leaning against an older sister leaning against her. The world seemed to rock in place as it faded in and out of focus and the memory of the last flurry of moves in Akane's suicide gambit replayed in her mind's eye.

Then the world abruptly snapped back into focus as Akane's head whipped around and she dropped to her knees.

Nabiki's head whipped around to follow her sister's gaze to find another woman and a young girl approaching Raven and Akane, the woman with her hands cupped in front of her chest and apparently holding a tiny ball of light.

Then the two looked up past Akane, the little girl calling out a greeting, and Nabiki twisted to see what they were looking at — and found another two women, _floating_ down from one of the trees that lined the park, related somehow to the rest if the facial tattoos were any indication. The large raven that had accompanied Raven before coasted down to land on the shoulder of the woman with star tattoos.

Beside her, Kasumi was actually ignoring the now-squalling baby in her arms as she stared at the scene. "Nabiki, what's happening?" the Tendo matriarch asked with a voice that shook.

"I don't know, big sis, let's go find out," Nabiki replied. She strode toward her still-kneeling younger sister, Kasumi following behind as she finally began singing softly to the baby.

/\

Urd was shaking as she floated down to the ground beside her mother, horrified relief echoing through her as her mind kept replaying Lind's dash across the field to save Akane — something that should have been _Urd's_ job. What had she been doing sitting in a tree while Akane fought for Ranma's — Raven's life? _Because you thought it was _safe_. That because neither one was actually trying to kill the other, you thought you could sit back and dither._

Of course, considering how _quickly_ everything had changed in the last seconds of the duel, it was possible she wouldn't have been able to move fast enough to prevent Akane's death even if she'd been right on top of them, and ... _'And' nothing, you're grasping at straws — you failed, and if not for Lind doing your job for you an innocent girl you were supposed to protect would have died because of it._

"Rise, Akane-chan," Lind was saying to the kneeling girl as they approached.

"What? But you're ... and I shouted ..." the raven-haired girl stammered.

"You did nothing to be ashamed of," the valkyrie responded to the near-incoherent objection. "No, today the honor is yours. Please, rise."

A fiercely blushing Akane rose to her feet just as her two sisters arrived, and Nabiki grabbed her younger sister's arm to pull her to the side, a pale redheaded revenant following them. "Don't you _ever_ do that to me again!" the pageboy-haired brunette hissed. "What's going on?"

"That is an excellent question," Lind said, and ignored the Mistress of Hell and her daughter's half-sisters as they arrived to focus all her attention on Urd. "Report."

Taking a deep breath, Urd forced her eyes to meet Lind's and began. It took several minutes, not helped by the way the normally exuberantly cocky goddess/demon stumbled through her explanation of how miserably she'd failed in her assignment.

Her story of every assumption, miscalculation and dithering moment at an end, she found that somewhere along the way her eyes had dropped to the green lawn they stood on. Feeling completely drained, she again forced her gaze up to meet Lind's, to find not a hint of either condemnation or sympathy, only calm acceptance. "Your performance of your assignment was poor, from the moment you first encountered Hild-sama to the end, and that end would have been failure," the Valkyrie said firmly. "However, that failure was inevitable — it was an assignment for which you have neither training nor experience, and I will insist on giving my assessment to any review board you are called before. If anyone other than Kami-sama had given you this assignment, I would demand that they be removed from their position, disciplined, and reduced in rank. I would suggest that you ask Kami-sama why you were given the assignment at the next opportunity — sometimes he will tell you, at least after the fact."

Glancing over at Hild beside her, Lind added, "But I believe the assignment is over. Is that not correct, Hild-sama?"

"Correct. When it took your intervention to prevent Akane-san's death, Raven successfully completed her list. She is now my newest Fury, or will be once we return to Niflheim and register the results of the test."

Urd started at the sound of her mother's voice — in her need to unburden herself to the Valkyrie, she had actually forgotten that Hild was there. Ignoring Akane's joyful shout of "Yes!" as she threw her arms around the redhead standing beside her where the three mortals and one spirit had been anxiously listening in, she twisted to stare at the Daimakaicho, a spike of fear shooting through her. Her mother's tone had been flat, bleached of all emotion, the cheerily mocking undertone that had been there in the worst of times terrifyingly absent.

But Hild wasn't looking at the exuberant mortal, or at Lind. Instead, all her attention was focused on Belldandy ... and the tiny ball of light in the hands cupped up in front of her chest that somehow gave the impression that it was huddling, trying to hide in the valley between the Norn of the Present's breasts, sinking into the top of Belldandy's dress. Urd felt her sudden fear grow, until she felt bleached of all warmth. She knew of only one thing that looked like that, that could terrify her mother that badly —

"Is that thing what I think it is?" Hild demanded.

Belldandy gave the Daimakaicho an old-fashioned look. "Hild-sama, you are scaring the little one," she said sternly, before leaning down to whisper, "Don't worry, I won't let her hurt you," to the tiny glow.

Urd stared for a moment as the light hesitantly shifted out from the valley of Belldandy's breasts to once again hover over her palms. Somehow it seemed to Urd as if it was poking a nonexistent tongue out at one of the two most powerful beings on Earth and all its ancillary dimensions.

Urd switched her gaze back to Lind, to find the normally stoic Valkyrie gazing at her sister with a faint, fond smile on her face, shaking her head gently. Feeling the goddess/demon's gaze, she looked over at the tanned platinum blonde. "Yes, that's the Demon's Seed," she said.

A goddess cannot faint from shock — that requires a circulatory system so inefficient as to not have enough blood to satisfy all a body's needs at once, and neither the divine nor the demonic actually _have_ blood per se. Nevertheless, Urd tried very, very hard to do just that, and Lind grabbed one of her arms as she swayed in place, her abrupt lightheadedness turning the world surreal.

/\

Unlike Urd, when Hild had declared Raven one of her Furies Kasumi had had to try very, very hard _not_ to faint, swaying in place, Nabiki holding her up (if she asked later, she knew Nabiki would say that was all she was doing, but even through her relief Kasumi could feel the tremors running through the body pressed against her back) while Akane whirled Raven around in circles. Fainting is a _very_ bad idea when you have a baby in your arms.

She was helped in her efforts by the flat, emotionless tone of the one that had just declared Raven hers when she made the announcement — for someone that had gotten what she wanted, she was a _very_ unhappy ... whatever she was. Something was wrong.

Straightening, Kasumi focused on star-tattooed platinum blonde. There was a strong family resemblance to the goddess that had stumbled and stuttered her way through the report on what was apparently her assignment to protect Akane, but to the martial artists' daughter and sister there was a dangerous air to her, one shared only by one of the other four newcomers, the one that had saved Akane's life.

And what was a 'demon's seed'? Whatever it was, it terrified the triangle-tattooed goddess.

Kasumi glanced over at the revenant and youngest Tendo, but they were still caught up each other. From the look of things spirits couldn't cry, or Kasumi suspected from the way Raven was now clutching Akane the redhead would have been sobbing on her former fiancée's shoulder from sheer relief. And from the way Nabiki was still at clutching her, her other sister wasn't much better.

Shifting the fussing baby to one arm, Kasumi reached up to gently pull Nabiki's arms from around her and stepped forward, glancing around at the tattooed child and women before focusing on the purple-haired goddess that had saved her sister's life, apparently hold up the platinum blonde that had just given her report. "Excuse me, Goddess-sama, but what is a 'demon's seed', and how does it involve my family?" she asked hesitantly.

The goddess glanced over. "My name is Lind, and with me are Urd, Belldandy and Skuld, the Norns of the Past, Present and Future, and Hild-sama, Daimakaicho of Niflheim," she said, indicating each of the others as she named them before handing her poleax to the goddess she was helping brace up. "Here, Urd, use this to brace yourself," she murmured before turning back to look Kasumi up and down. "No fighter, but enough courage for a flight of Valkyrie," she mused, before nodding. "You even have the strength for what is to come." She looked over Kasumi's shoulder, and a moment later Nabiki stepped around to stand beside her sister on one side as Raven and Akane stepped up on the other, the pair holding hands. The goddess gave them an approving smile. "A true family," she said, before sobering.

"The Demon's Seed is a sending from a terrible being we call the Devourer. He travels from Earth to Earth, killing or enslaving each world's defenders — divine, demonic, faerie or mortal — and making it over into his own image before feeding on its energies — its Life. When he has reduced his current conquest to a near-lifeless rock, he seeks out a new conquest, sending out invitations, seeking weak and greedy minds. Once the sendings find such minds, they offer the usual enticements, power, fame, wealth, pleasure." Lind glanced sideways at the cute platinum blonde with star tattoos and the raven perched on her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, Kasumi saw Akane shudder and seem to shrink in slightly.

Lind continued, "To gain the offered wealth and power, his new acolytes are required to offer a newly pregnant woman, and open a portal through which he sends his Seed — a fragment broken off from his own soul that enters the baby and merges with the child's spirit when it comes. As the child grows, it strengthens the connection with its father until around its eighteenth birthday it becomes a portal through which the Devourer can enter his new conquest."

Raven and the Tendos stared in shock at the ball of light, and in response it again shrank back against its protector. Belldandy shifted one hand over to completely cover it, the light's glow seeping through between her fingers, almost glaring at the mortal. "It isn't the Seed's fault who its father is," she reprimanded them sternly. "Were your fathers so wonderful?"

Raven winced. "But ... ya have the Seed, ya kept it from mergin', right?" she asked.

Belldandy's stern look vanished, replaced by sympathy, and Kasumi felt her heart sink. She'd _known_ it couldn't be that simple, but for a moment she'd hoped...

"Yes they did — this time," Hild said, and if she still sounded serious enough to make her — sister? daughter? mother? how could you tell how old a goddess was, anyway? — whichever, she was making the other platinum blonde and the raven-haired child — Skuld and Urd? — nervous, but she at least sounded like a living being now, instead of a machine. "And the cult that summoned it is no longer an issue?" Hild asked Lind.

"There were no survivors," Lind answered calmly.

"Excellent, more grist for my mills," Hild chirped, smiling happily, her earlier seriousness gone.

Kasumi suddenly felt queasy as she remembered where she'd heard the terms "Norns" and "Niflheim" before, and realized that Hild could well have meant what she said about "grist" and "mills" literally.

"Anyway," Hild continued, "even if Belldandy was morally flexible enough to keep the Seed from bonding until it was drawn back to merge with its father, the Devourer has our scent now — he has a lock on our world and will simply find other useful idiots to provide him with a new bride and raise the child afterwards. And the next time we may not be lucky enough to locate the next cult, they will be under orders not to draw attention to themselves and given power by their master to blind us to their location. Which means that Kami-sama already has a plan or you wouldn't be here. Am I right, girls?"

"Yes, you are," Belldandy replied.

/\

Akane _knew_ where this was headed — where it _always_ headed. The goddesses were going to ask that Ran — Raven magically fix all their problems for them, or tell her that it was somehow all her fault and _demand_ she make it right, talk about how only she could save them all. And whether because of the challenge or simply her generous spirit, Raven would rise to the bait while everyone else stood around and did nothing but applaud.

_Not this time._

"I'll do it!" Akane almost shouted, and blushed as everyone turned to look at her and she realized that she had just interrupted a _goddess_.

"Do _what_, exactly, child?" Hild asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Whatever it takes," Akane replied stubbornly even as her blush turned as fiery as Raven's hair. "Be the mother, I guess — not something Raven can do, without a body."

Belldandy smiled, and Akane felt her angry resentment fade in the face of the love and sympathy the goddess seemed to radiate. "A generous offer," Belldandy replied, "but I'm afraid that isn't possible — you aren't pregnant now, and there isn't time for you to become pregnant. However, there is a way for you and Raven to eventually rejoin each other as friends or lovers, as you choose.

"Akane, you will need to donate your body — your spirit will need to move on, leaving your body free to act as the host for the Seed once we Norns have returned it to its infancy. Normally, your spirit would seek out the afterlife your life has earned you for a time, before returning to Earth for your next life. But this time, we will see to it that you are reborn immediately to a family of our choosing.

"Raven, once the Seed has found its new home, we need you to join with it, to provide the human half of the new soul. You will be stripped of your memories when this happens but not the personality that every spirit carries with it from incarnation to incarnation, and your memories will return over time as you grow. We hope that your strength of will combined with the love and training we provide will give you the strength to resist your new father's attempt to use you as a portal. Then, once the Devourer has been permanently denied entry into our world, you may seek out Akane and offer to restore her memories and reunite her with the family she will leave behind. You would be almost a year older than her, but I do not think that will matter much."

"But, what if I ... if the future me refuses the memories?" Akane demanded.

Belldandy shook her head. "While it is possible that you might refuse the memories, considering the family that we have chosen to place you with, it is very unlikely. I do not think you have to worry about that."

"Akane." The youngest Tendo glanced sideways at the redhead whose hand she realized she was clutching hard enough to turn her knuckles white — if Raven had been human, her hand would have needed surgery to reconstruct. She forced her hand to relax, and Raven softly sighed with relief. "Akane," she said again, "it's fer the whole world."

"But, why does it have to be _us_?" Akane protested. "Why can't they find someone else this time?"

"If there was anyone better fer this, don't ya think they'd be knockin' on their door right now?" Raven replied, then 'oomphed', freezing in place as her former fiancée let go of her hand to pull her into a hard hug.

"It's going to be so long!" Akane whispered in her ear.

"Not as long as it would'a been if ya managed to get me ta kill ya," Raven replied, then winced as Akane stiffened. She hesitantly lifting her arms to return the embrace as she hurried on, "An' ya won't remember a thing 'til I show up on yer doorstep. _I_ won't remember, fer most'a the time. Yer sisters are the ones that are gonna be missin' us."

Akane froze. She had been so caught up in her — friend? lover? They hadn't actually _done_ anything but fight and she wasn't even sure she wanted to be with a girl that way, but the thought of not having Raven in her life now as Ranma had been before hurt so much... _You aren't the only one this must be hurting, and Ranma's right — Kasumi and Nabiki are going to be the ones that remember._

She reluctantly released the redheaded spirit to turn and find her sisters facing the pair. Kasumi's face was tilted down toward the now happily gurgling baby she was bouncing in her arms, but Akane could see tear tracks streaking her cheeks. Nabiki's cheeks were dry, her face an emotionless mask, but her hands were clenched into fists. "Kasumi? Nabiki? I'm sorry ..."

Kasumi raised her head, and for a moment Akane's resolve wavered at the sight of the pain in her mother figure's eyes. But Kasumi forced a smile, and said, "You have nothing to be sorry for, a world to help save, and your love to be reunited with. Do what you have to, we'll be waiting for you." Nabiki didn't speak, but jerked a nod.

Akane stepped over and pulled both sisters into a hard embrace, and started crying as they returned the hug. "I love you both," she whispered, before reluctantly breaking away and turning to face Hild and the goddesses. "Let's get this over with," she managed to get out through a tight throat.

/\

Akane stared up at Raven from where she lay on the park lawn, shivering slightly from tension and the light breeze caressing her naked body. The redhead's own naked body was covered with goosebumps, except within a few inches of the ball of light bobbing above her hands cupped up in front of her breasts.

Raven smiled tremulously down at her. "Yah ready?" she asked softly.

Akane nodded smiled back as her shivering increased. "I'm ready. Love you, Baka."

"Love you, Tomboy," Raven looked up where Akane knew the oldest of the three Norns stood and nodded, then smiled back down at her as the voluptuous platinum blonde began to sing. Her love's bright blue eyes were the last thing she saw before the weight of the unearthly music of the goddess's voice washed her away with a cascade of images of her life.

"_Ran — Raven, you didn't escape somehow from Rothgan's Wall, did you?"_

"_Let me GO! It's my fault, I deserve to die!"_

"_Ranma, I told you to stay out of my FIGHTS!"_

"_I'm Akane, you want to be friends?"_

"_Do you think Dr. Tofu thinks I'm cute?"_

"_Daddy, how can I be a martial artist if you don't TRAIN me! ?"_

"_What's wrong with Mommie?"_

"_I'm gonna be the best martial artist ever!"_

And everything went white.

/\

Raven dropped her gaze from Urd (and the _extremely_ strange top half of a breathtakingly beautiful winged woman that seemed to be projecting from the goddess's back, but Raven had more important concerns), looking back down to Akane's brown eyes, the youngest Tendo's terrified gaze locking on her own. Raven smiled, dropping one of her hands from cupping the Seed to grasp Akane's hand, and Akane smiled back for a moment. Then Urd and her angel's duo-toned wordless song bore down on them, Akane's gaze lost its focus into infinity, and before Raven's eyes her former fiancée's face grew younger as her body shrank.

Even as the redhead found herself holding the tiny hand of a baby between thumb and forefinger, the youngest of the Norns lifted her own voice to soar above her sister's, and as endless possibilities seemed to open up before the revenant another ball of light slowly rose from the baby's chest and passed straight through the revenant, before flying to circle about the child goddess and her own beautiful winged half-angel, the human soul dancing and spinning to the Skuld's song, and a thread of laughter resonated through both of the competing melodies at the sight.

So shaken was Raven by the sense of Akane's presence from their brief joining that only the sudden coolness of her palm warned her that the half a soul that they had had to spend long minutes coaxing into her hands was gone, and her eyes dropped just in time to see the Seed vanish into the baby Akane's chest. At that instant Belldandy and her angel added their own wordless thread to the music of Time, a ribbon of sound that seemed to wrap itself around Urd's foundation of all that had gone before and lifted to mix with Skuld's endless possibilities, binding the two together into a harmonious whole — and Raven found herself falling forward, settling downward, the baby looming larger and larger until it seemed to encompass all that was.

And everything went white.

/\

Nabiki blinked furiously, trying to clear her eyes of sparkles as the lines, circles and glyphs of glowing light that had sprung up around Raven and her sister with the beginning of the Norns' song faded with its ending. Vision clearing, she ignored the already-fading memory of music beyond anything she had ever heard, piercing to the soul, and focused on the center of the park where the revenant and her sister had been to find the lovely triangle-tattooed brunette already bending to pick up a tiny form, her sisters standing beside her.

Then Kasumi was pulling her forward, ignoring Nabiki's protests that it might not be safe to rush toward the goddesses. "Is she all right?" the Tendo matriarch demanded as they reached the Norns.

Belldandy looked up from where she'd been making faces at the happily gurgling baby in her arms and turned so the Tendos could see. "Yes, Raven is," she replied with a smile. "See for yourselves."

Nabiki lifted an eyebrow as she examined the infant — the black hair was right, but the gray skin tone was definitely odd. "Is that color normal?" she asked, frowning.

"Yes, Nabiki-san, it is if half of your soul is of the Devourer's inheritance," Lind said as she and Hild joined them, the raven Thought still riding the Daimakacho's shoulder.

"So Akane isn't in there?"

"Nope, got her right here!" Skuld chirped from where she was leaning against Urd, face drawn with exhaustion. When Kasumi and Nabiki looked over at her, the girl lifted a hand to her chest. "She's with Noble Scarlet, she'll be safe until we can send her to her new home."

"Will ... will we be able to visit her?" Kasumi asked hesitantly.

But Belldandy shook her head. "No. She won't remember you, and you would not be able to resist demanding a connection that her previous life entitles you to. She and her new family would resent it, and you. Or you would be able to resist the temptation, and remain on the outside looking in. It is better to wait until she remembers, even if it will be almost two decades. You will have your own child to raise, after all."

Kasumi glanced down at the sleeping baby she'd almost forgotten she was holding in one arm (miraculously sleeping baby, Nabiki thought, and wondered if any of the goddesses had something to do with it), and nodded reluctant acquiescence, shoulders slumping. "Will we at least be able to see Ranma?" she pleaded. "She and ... my child could grow up together —"

But Belldandy was shaking her head again. "I am truly sorry, Kasumi-chan, but that will not be possible. Raven will not be safe around mortals for many years, until she attains control over her heritage. However, with your permission I will visit from time to time — I can at least let you know how your loved ones are doing."

As Kasumi vigorously nodded and Nabiki felt some of the ache in her soul ease, Belldandy added, "And there is one thing I can do for you." Shifting the sleeping Raven to one arm, she reached out with the other to lay her hand on the forehead of the baby in Kasumi's arm. She again lifted her voice in song, though this time without her angelic companion, and for a brief moment the baby seems to glow with a soft pulsing light. As the melody died away, the mortals' memory of it again fading as it died, the Norn of the Present smiled even as she fought to stay erect. "Now, your child will appear as she would have if her parents had been Japanese. From what I've observed, that will make her life as she grows up much easier. And now, we must leave before Raven awakens. Please, be well." With that, the four goddesses and the Daimakaicho of Niflheim faded from view, leaving the last of the Tendos alone in the park.

The two simply stood and stared out across the peaceful scene even as people started filtering back onto the grassy sward and children swarmed into the nearby playground. The Magic was over. Finally, Nabiki reached up and gently shook her older sister's shoulder. "Come one, Kasumi, let's go home. Momma Nodoka must be frantic by now. And I'll help you come up with a name for the — for _our_ baby."

* * *

And that's that! I hope you all enjoy the ending, and that it was a surprise without it being _too_ much of a twist ending. I did try to drop some hints of what was coming without being too obvious about it...

Well, that was supposed to be that except for an epilogue chapter or two to wrap things up and set the stage for the eventual sequel. Instead, as I said earlier, it has now turned into the worst case of scene creep I've ever experienced, with another almost 19,000 words written at this point and at least several thousand more to go for a total of another four or five chapters (I'm undecided yet as whether to break the last part up into two chapters or one huge one - huge for me, anyway, maybe even as large as Ozallos' normal updates).

Fair warning, while my so-called Epilogue as some happy, lighthearted moments, overall it's pretty depressing and sometimes ugly - much like the rest of this story. For anyone not familiar enough with the Teen Titans cartoon to make the connection, our brand-new baby Raven is the Raven of the Teen Titans. And while the cartoon downplays things a bit, she's a mess - anti-social, her mind actually fractured to the point that her various emotional states have personalities of their own, and chronically depressed because she believes that she is destined to become the portal by which her father Trigon comes to destroy the Earth. And of course, there's what's going on with Urd and her mother.

Thanks much for all the reviews! I've been shocked at how many I've gotten on a story updating this quickly.

One last note: once I finish this story I am planning to get chapters up for "Yrthbound" and "DarkAngel and Cherub," run through all my stories once, then finish "DarkAngel and Cherub," run through the remaining stories again, and then post the first chapter of a new story. I have thoughts of multiple possible stories, and so have put a new poll in my profile to give my readers a chance to give their input as to which they'd like to see. No promises that I'll actually go with the poll winner, mind, but I'll certainly take it into account when making my final decision.


	15. New Assignments

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

Under an obscuration spell, Hild reached up to run a finger along the top of Thought's feathered head as she glanced over at the four goddesses hidden from mortal sight by Lind's own spell. The four goddesses were watching Kasumi and Nabiki walk away with their new baby, Skuld leaning against Belldandy with her older sister's arms around her. The tears running down the youngest Norn's face were evidence that the support was not simply because of the exhaustion obvious on the faces and in the postures of all three. Even the famously stoic Lind seemed pensive. Hild was her normal cheerful self. At least, she hoped she was — she had a reputation to maintain, after all. And speaking of her reputation, it was time to put on the act.

"Well, _that_ was fun," she chirped, turning to stride away from the goddesses. "Tell my ex that I'll be in touch."

" 'In touch'?" Urd repeated, suspicion clear in her tone. "About what?"

Hild turned around to smile cheerfully back at Lind and the Norns. "Why, about who will raise little Raven, of course." Her smile broadened at the dumbfounded looks on the faces of her daughter and Skuld. Even Lind reacted, her hands going white from the strength of her grip on the haft of her poleax. Belldandy was her usual serene self ... but was that a touch of amusement? _Yes, she knows._ "What, did you think I wouldn't want something for giving up my newest Fury?"

"But ... but the world ..." Skuld stammered.

"I know, I know, it's as much my world as anyone else's, I'm not going to do anything to destroy it," Hild said airily, waving off the young goddess's objection. "Still, I'm due _something_ for my cooperation, and that's my price." Glancing at Urd, she added, "I enjoyed our little mother/daughter time, we'll have to do it again sometime." And with another cheery wave, she resumed her exit. She needed to get to her office quickly, and its privacy. She had a few questions for her former husband...

/oOo\

"Kami-sama will see you now."

Those words jolted Urd from her doze, and she shot upright in her chair — her _very comfortable_ chair — in the waiting room to her father's office. Sighing, she rubbed at her face. She was still exhausted from the afternoon, and had been looking forward to something of a binge when they got home. But when they finally arrived back at the temple after their abortive side trip to pick up some ice cream for Skuld, Keichii had been waiting with a message for her and Lind that her Father wanted to see them ... immediately. She'd managed to down a few glasses (okay, mugs) of sake before the two had answered the summons, but either not enough or too much, depending on how one looked at it.

And then, of course, when they'd arrived they'd been asked to wait for a few minutes. Unlike mortal waiting rooms, it actually had been only a few minutes.

Beside her, Lind caught her elbow as she staggered slightly when she forced herself to her feet — and without the look of disapproval Urd normally would have expected of the stern Goddess of the Ax. Instead, the Valkyrie simply waited until she was certain her fellow goddess was securely on her feet then practically escorted her into Kami-sama's office.

Urd's father was apparently in an especially strong "kindly old man" mood, sitting in a recliner away from his desk by a cheery fireplace, sipping from a glass, feet propped up on a foot stool, waiting for the two goddesses. As they approached, he waved them to a curved couch across from him. It was immediately obviously where each goddess was supposed to sit by their favorite snacks and drinks waiting on the side tables at each end.

Once Lind made sure Urd was settled, leaned her poleax against the wall and sat down herself, Kami-sama set aside his glass on his own side table. "First, well done, both of you. The situation with the Demon's Seed is working out as well as we can expect, and much of that is because of how well the two of you played your parts."

Lind simply nodded her thanks, but Urd's eyes fell as she blushed, the memory flashing across her mind of Lind flying across the park to intercept Raven's final strike at Akane while she sat dithering in a tree.

She felt her father's gaze like a weight. "Urd," he said softly. She reluctantly looked up, at eyes holding no reproach at all. "You did well," he repeated with a gentle smile, "and your file will reflect that."

Urd finally sucked in a breath, squared her shoulders, and nodded. "Thank you, father," she replied, giving him a somewhat watery smile of her own.

Kami-sama let the moment linger for a minute, before nodding. "So we've started well, but to continue well we need to see to it that our little Raven is raised properly. Hild has already contacted me, and I have agreed with her suggestion. Raven will have three parents, one of Hild's choice, one of my own, and one we jointly agree to. Hild has chosen Mara — something about putting her where she could do more good and less harm." He smiled as the two goddesses chuckled, Urd remembering some of the Norns' encounters with her childhood friend. Once the chuckles died away he continued, "Lind, you are my choice."

Lind stiffened in her seat. "Me! ?" she squeaked (something Urd wasn't sure she believed she'd actually heard). "But ... but I'm not —"

"Not the mothering type, no," Kami-sama broke in to say. "I don't expect you will be the one Raven goes to for comfort. But while she will be either too young or too occupied with mastering her powers to relearn martial arts except as a meditation aid, she _is_ going to need to learn self-control, and for that you are perfect."

Lind stared at him before finally nodding, shoulders slumping. "True," she agreed with a sigh.

"Now, Lind, it wouldn't be as bad as you're afraid of," Kami-sama said soothingly. "Yes, you'd need to share living quarters with Raven's co-mothers so she will accept you. Yes, that would mean sharing your home with a demon. But it would only be for a short time. As well, your major parenting responsibilities won't begin for years. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to maintain your current responsibilities for a time, and even later only decrease them rather than end them altogether. Will you accept?"

The purple-haired goddess had perked up at his words, and she nodded firmly. "I will."

Urd had been listening to the conversation with dawning horror. She did _not_ like where this was leading, and at this point could think of only one reason why her father would have asked her to join this particular meeting. Though why her and not Belldandy ...

Kami-sama now turned his attention to his daughter. "Urd, your mother suggested, and I agreed, that you would be an excellent choice for the third —"

"No!" Urd shot to her feet, the faint haze over her thinking blown away by her anger. A tiny part of her was warning her that she was shouting at her _Father_, but she was too furious to care. "I don't know what game Hild is playing at, but I am _not_ going to spend two decades on babysitting duty! I cannot believe that you would choose me over someone like Belldandy! ..."

Kami-sama simply listened to his daughter's ranting for a few minutes, before turning his focus to a stiff-faced Valkyrie doing her best not to cringe. "Lind, would you excuse us? I would like to speak with my daughter in private."

"Of course," Lind responded gratefully, and rose to grab her poleax and practically run from the room. Kami-sama watched her go, then turned back to his daughter.

Urd's rant slammed to a stop as she abruptly found herself floating in a formless, infinite void, surrounded by what felt like enough power to move worlds, all focused on _her_. Then she was back in the office, on her knees, hugging herself and gasping. "My apologies for the fright, Urd-chan," she faintly heard her Father say, "but in your anger you would have continued for quite some time — you have a rather extensive and varied vocabulary." She lifted into the air and floated over to her place on the couch, and a glass made its way to her hand. She gulped down the contents, thinking distantly that that was no way to treat sake of that quality — even if the glass refilled itself as soon as she emptied it.

Finally, she shuddered and set aside the glass as she looked up into eyes filled with understanding compassion. "Better?" he asked. When she nodded, he smiled. "Good. Now, you are, of course, free to turn down the assignment. As with your assignment this afternoon, nothing will go in your file, and I'll ask Lind not to speak of it. However, there are two points you should consider before you make your decision.

"First, Belldandy is not available for this task. It will be years before Raven has enough control to be trusted around mortals," — Urd shuddered, remembering how baby Raven had woken up and gotten fussy at the ice cream emporium, and how after their exertions that afternoon the goddesses had barely had the speed to prevent a serious mess — "and your sister has her own assignment on Midgard that has decades yet to go. But even if she was available, she would _not_ be a better choice as Raven's mother. Certainly there is no one more nurturing and understanding, but she is also too accepting of things as they are. Understandable, considering that she is the Norn of the Present — the present is as it is — but it is still a flaw, one I am happy to see losing its grip on her during her present assignment. You, on the other hand, are more proactive, and Raven is going to need your example in the years ahead as she deals with her slowly awakening memories. Then there is your dual nature — I can think of no one that better understands what Raven will be going through as she struggles with her own nature."

Urd slumped down where she sat, feeling her stomach sink, then picked up the glass and once again gulped it empty. She had never managed to win an argument with her Father before on the few occasions she had tried, and she had no idea why she'd thought she might now. For a moment, her mind flashed back to a redhead telling her raven-haired love that it was for the whole world — a world that included Keiichi and all the other mortals she had come to know. "All right," she said, sounding defeated. "I'll do it."

"Thank you. I know this isn't how you were planning to spend the next few years, but I think you will find the time spent as rewarding as any you have ever experienced." Rising to his feet, Kami-sama offered her a hand, then when she took it pulled her to her feet and into a hug. "I love you, Little One," he murmured into her ear.

"I know ... Daddy. I love you, too," the platinum-haired demon/goddess replied. They stood there for several minutes, before Kami-sama broke the embrace. "Now, go get some rest. And don't worry about the next few weeks, the three of you will have all the help from both Asgard and Niflheim you could possibly want. Call in the morning and we'll set up a joint meeting to discuss the details. And I think that I'll have Belldandy stay with you for awhile, to help you adjust to your new responsibilities."

Urd nodded, leaned forward to kiss her Father on the cheek, and turned for the door. So, Belldandy to help them get started and all the resources of Heaven and Hell at her ... their disposal? Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, after all...

/\

As the door closed behind the departing Norn of the Past, the obscuration field over the corner of the room dropped to reveal the Daimakaicho of Niflheim rising from another recliner there. The usually perky diminutive platinum blonde strode out to join her ex-husband, wiping at wet eyes. Kami-sama sat down on the couch, and Hild plopped down to curl up next to him, laying her head on his shoulders and sighing contentedly as an arm circled her shoulders. "You actually pulled it off. I wasn't sure you would," Hild said, voice shaky.

"You mean you refused to hope I could pull it off," Kami-sama riposted gently. "I never had a doubt — our daughter is simply the best person for the job, and once she realized that her acceptance was inevitable. But you aren't going to be able to take advantage of the 'visitation rights' you're going to insist on as often as you'd like."

"If I did that, I'd move in with them and never leave," Hild grumbled. For a few minutes the couple simply enjoyed each other's presence, until finally Hild asked, "Do you really think Urd will accept my offer?"

Kami-sama was silent for a long moment, before sighing. "Our daughter may not have her sister's ability to love the entire world, but those she does accept into her heart, she loves with everything she has — and she is going to spend years supporting soon-to-be-her little Raven as the child relives all the pain and torture inflicted on Ranma by those that should have loved him in her dreams, ending with her time in Niflheim. Yes, Frigg, I believe she will ultimately accept your offer. I will miss her, but she'll be able to make the same discreet visits that you do. And I suspect I'll get a consolation prize out of this."

Hild giggled. "Yes. Mara has power and skill, but her heart has never really been in her work. After years of motherhood along with up-close, long-term exposure to Lind, Urd, and the others that will be dropping in from time to time — she should make you an excellent goddess." She felt Kami-sama's own chuckle where her cheek rested on his chest.

Taking in a deep breath, she disengaged from her ex-husband's embrace and rose to her feet. "Now, I'd better get back to Niflheim and start making my own arrangements. I am _so_ looking forward to Mara's reaction to her new assignment." She bent over to kiss him on the lips. "Love you, Odin," she murmured. Straightening, she strode over to a wall, murmured a phrase in a language that had died with the previous Earth, waited a moment as another obscuration spell shattered to reveal the human-sized black oval on the wall, then stepped through and was gone.

* * *

So, on to what was going to be the epilogue and is essentially Part Two. A large part of the reasons for the scene creep was Urd. I could have probably gotten away with I massive scene jump if I'd stuck to Raven, where she ends up is pretty much set in canon, but Urd is another matter and where _she_ ends up takes more explication.

As always, reviews are great, thanks!

**Wrin, one. who. reads, Yuri-Hime-Chan: **My original plan after the massive "epilogue" was to start the sequel by simply jumping to after the end of Season Five of the Teen Titans as Raven goes looking for the reincarnated Akane, and fill in the backstory as needed. The idea is that the Raven of the cartoons is the Raven of the story, personality-wise, just with a different backstory, so telling the story of her time with the Titans would mostly just be to write up the cartoon episodes with a bit of internal monologueing on Raven's part to highlight her different upbringing. But one question asked in the comments section of Anime Addventures got me thinking - what are Asgard and Niflheim doing while the Titans are doing their little dance with Trigon after he shows up? Some interesting possibilities have been occurring to me, including one marvelous scene (at least in my mind's eye) that begs to be written. But so do some plot bunnies for the sequel. So, what I'll probably end up doing is starting the sequel as planned, but write up the Season Four blowout as a separate sidestory. It'll take awhile, though, because it isn't going to be one of my main stories.

**skywiseskychan:** The answer to your question about Ryoga dying as a piglet will be answered in passing in a day or two.

**janissasonic. net: **I'm glad you liked the ending of what's essentially Part One, even if it wasn't what you expected. And yeah, labeling this one's a bit tough and the sequel will be even tougher. I think I'll wait until this one is finished, then relabel it Ranma/Oh My Goddess! - it simply gets more coverage in the purely Ranma section, but once the story's done relabeling it will make it easier for people to find. And I can't say how I'm thinking of labeling the sequel, that would give too much away. ^_~


	16. Growing Pains

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

"So you're really leaving."

Urd, unusually dressed for once in simple (if tight) jeans and a T-shirt, looked from where she and a similarly dressed Mara were packing the last of her potions supplies to find her apparently early-teenaged, raven-haired sister standing in the doorway. (Not being exhausted the previous day, the Norn of the Past's childhood friend had already moved into their new home in a pocket dimension attached to both Asgard and Midgard. She had volunteered to help Urd pack, muttering something about avoiding babysitting duty as long as possible.)

"Yeah, duty calls," Urd replied nonchalantly. "Looks like you'll get the TV to yourself instead of always losing it to me."

"As if," Skuld retorted, smirking ... though her chin was trembling suspiciously.

Urd glanced over at the tanned, blonde demon, and decided she could trust Mara to handle the last few bottles without breaking them; she'd already taken care of the really important items herself, anyway. Walking past her sister, she ordered, "Come here, Squirt." She suppressed a sigh when Skuld just followed along without yelling at her for the disparaging label — Skuld really was taking her leaving badly.

The platinum blonde goddess led her younger sister into her own room, then turned to face her. "Okay, Skuld, I know just what your second thought was when you heard I was leaving," she said, and Skuld stiffened at her older sister's serious tone. "With me out of the way, you'll have a clear shot at breaking up Bell and Keiichi." The young goddess scowled even as she blushed, but before she could say anything Urd overrode her. "It's not happening. First, I've already had a talk with Keiichi and if anything will _finally_ get that boy — that young man — to get off his butt and set a date it's the possible end of the world.

"_Second_," she continued over Skuld's angry growl, "I've _also_ had a talk with Peorth, and she's promised to keep an eye on you. She may not be around as much as I was, but I suspect her response to any stunts you pull will be even more embarrassing than mine."

"But that's not fair!" Skuld burst out, pouting.

Urd laughed. " 'Fair' has nothing to do with it, kiddo," she retorted. "That pair belongs together for as long as Keiichi's lifespan allows, and by now you're the only one that doesn't accept it."

"Thank you for your concern, but I believe Keiichi and I can take care of our own relationship."

The two goddesses whirled to find their smiling sister standing in the doorway, the gray-skinned, raven-haired form of little Raven in her arms. She continued, "Besides, I already spoke with him about it before you two got up this morning, and he said he'd find out what days next month would be best for his family and friends to attend our wedding."

The other two Norns stared, gaping. Finally, Urd burst out, "Then why didn't he _say_ anything when I talked to him? !"

"Did you give him a chance? Or did you simply give him thinly veiled orders?" Belldandy shook her head disapprovingly when her older sister blushed, then started gently bouncing Raven when the baby started to fuss. "Come along, sisters, it's time to go. Mara is finished packing, and we need to take the limiters off Raven as soon as possible."

"Right," Urd agreed. She glanced down to find her little sister trying to put on a nonchalant expression ... but the chin quiver was back. "Hey, kiddo, remember how I said breaking up Bell and Keiichi was the second thought you had?" When Skuld nodded suspiciously, she ruffled the young goddess's hair. "I'm going to miss having you around, too."

"Yeah, right, like I'm gonna ... gonna m-m-miss ..." The raven-haired child-goddess threw her arms around her eldest sister and buried her face against Urd's T-shirt.

Urd sighed and circled her arms around her sister's shoulder. _Sorry, kid, but life is change, as much for us as for mortals._ "Of course you won't," she murmured. The two stood there for several minutes before Urd reluctantly broke the embrace. "Come on, Sprout, we're keeping Belldandy waiting." Skuld's older sisters carefully ignored as she scrubbed at wet cheeks and the two joined their sister, Urd glancing around pensively as Belldandy led them toward the gate.

/oOo\

_Three years later:_

"But mommy, I'm tired! I wanna go park!"

"I know, Kitling," Lind replied from the cushion where she sat across from her daughter, looking up from the smooth crystal she held in her cupped hands. "We will. You just need to finish the practice first. You almost had it. Let's try again, and as soon as you do it we'll go."

Raven pouted but finally gave Momma Lind the smile that always made her 'glow' even brighter and said, "Okay."

The dusky-skinned three-year-old tucked her legs across each other as her Momma Lind had shown her and closed her eyes, and this time Momma Lind began murmuring. The quiet one of her three mommies was talking about snow fields, clear meadows, quiet ponds, and other stuff Raven didn't really understand, but she let the sound of her mommy's words wash over her as she tried to think of nothing.

At first, memories of her day so far with Momma Lind interfered — playing with her crayons and coloring book while Momma Lind danced with her long stick, sitting in her lap while her mommy read to her out of a picture book, running to catch a ball her mommy would roll out and kick it back — but now she was in the long quiet time that she hated where her mommy didn't want her to nap, but didn't want her to _do_ anything. And it had been a long day, and she was feeling a little drowsy, and the stream of meaningless words from her mommy washed over her, and she could feel her mommy's love reaching out to surround her and she sank into it like a warm blanket...

/\

As Raven closed her eyes, Lind looked back down at the scan crystal in her hands and the shape of their little girl floating in its clear depths. She fought to stay calm, to keep away her frustration as she watched the dark tendrils of energy radiate out in all directions from the rotating form, undulating as if carried by a breeze, reaching out to caress everything in the room — which wasn't much: Lind herself (though never quite connecting with the Valkyrie, repelled by her own divine essence), the crystal in her hands, a few pillows, and the bare walls. The power Raven had inherited with her demonic half, connecting to the world around her — and the conduits of her anger.

Up until that day Raven had shown no progress at all at keeping her emotions in check, keeping them from mixing with the power exploring her surroundings, but today something seemed to have clicked and time after time the darkness in the tendrils visible in the crystal had faded, sometimes to only a faint tinge. But every time Raven would almost reach complete clarity, she would lose concentration — complain about being bored, ask when they were going to the park, whine about wanting to see her friends, or (the last few times) doze off. And she was so close!

_Maybe she needs some motivation,_ the Valkyrie thought, _a reminder of the places we can take her if she can control herself._ She started talking of the beauties of Earth that Raven would see, her attention drifting as she daydreamed of their little raven-haired, dusky-skinned bundle of joy building sandcastles on a sparkling beach, playing hide-and seek with her mothers in a green forest silent except for birdsong and laughter, a snowball fight on a foothill of a majestic mountain.

As Lind described all her favorite vacation spots in loving detail, she fought to keep her eagerness in check as again in her crystal the darkness permeating Raven's power faded, more ... more ... Then the undulating ribbons flashed white, a clear pure glow racing down their length to light up the crystal, and Lind bounced to her feet and pumped a fist in the air. "Yes! You did it!" she shouted as she grabbed up Raven and swung her around, laughing.

/\

Raven was confused. One moment she had been drifting, mesmerized by her mother's voice, practically asleep, and the next she was swept up from where she sat, whirling in a circle with her Momma Lind laughing like the little girl had never heard her laugh before, blazing with happy love.

Then the moment was over, Raven was back on the floor (and a little dizzy), and Momma Lind was back to her usual quiet calm — except that she felt kinda like Momma Urd did when Momma Mara whispered in her ear. Momma Lind was turning a little red like Momma Urd did, too.

Raven started giggling.

Though Momma Lind felt even more like Momma Urd (and her face was getting redder, too), all she said was, "You did very well, Kitling, we're done for the day. Let's go to the park."

/oOo\

Urd looked up from her seat at the table when Mara stepped into the kitchen. The goddess/demon had an open can of sake in one hand, several unopened cans in front of her and a scattering of empty cans across the table's surface. "You're home early," she said.

The tanned platinum blonde demon eyebrows rose at the sight, then she shrugged and walked over to open the fridge and grab a can of her favorite beer. "No point in hanging around in Niflheim after work," she said, opening the can and taking a long swig. "They're all assholes, anyway."

Urd's gaze sharpened at the comment. As formerly one of Asgard's top systems administrators, she had some idea of how important fun time together could be for teambuilding — though in the case of Niflheim it was probably more about keeping an eye on the competition and watching out for knives in the back. But after a moment, she let it go. _Her business, and Hild's — she does work for the opposition, after all, however much fun it's been to have her around without worrying about clashing agendas._ "Watch your language even when Raven's not around," she warned, "or you're bound to slip up when she _is_ around."

Mara rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mother," she replied, and plopped down in another seat at the table. "So what are you doing here? I thought you'd be in your laboratory working on orders."

"I'm waiting for Lind to get back from the park with Raven," Urd said shortly, lifting her can to take a gulp.

"I see." Mara glanced over the empty cans and suppressed a sigh. This had been building for years, ever since Raven had moved beyond a sometimes smiling, sometimes cranky cute blob of flesh that inhaled food through one end and expelled the resulting waste products out the other to take on more of her own personality. The resulting cheerful, helpful (at least Raven thought so), creative baby girl _had_ to be all Ranma — any personality Raven might have inherited through the shard of Trigon's soul didn't bear thinking about, though it might come through a little in her occasional brief but intense flashes of anger (fortunately, the trio's budget for replacing what their daughter destroyed during those episodes was unlimited, and the three had been only slightly battered before they learned the warning signs). Belldandy believed that was just the natural anger of any child, expressed through more power than any child should have, though Mara had her doubts.

_But that's not what's bothering Urd, is it? No, Urd's problem is Lind. Though it might be _Lind's_ problem._ "If I'm early, Lind's late, isn't she?" the demon asked. "I'd have thought she'd be back from the park hours ago." _Oops, wrong question to ask,_ she thought as Urd's expression darkened.

She was trying to think of something to say to short-circuit the impending explosion when they heard the chime signaling someone arriving at the front gate, followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing. A few moments later Lind appeared in the doorway, the dusky-skinned child in her arms with her head on the Valkyrie's shoulder, the velvet choker and wrist bands the child wore stained with sweat. The sleeping Raven started to shift in Lind's arms, making a fussing sound under what Mara assumed had to be an onslaught of the tension that instantly filled the room.

Mara leaped to her feet and hastened around the table to the newcomers. "Here, let me have her, I'll get the limiters off and put her to bed. Her bath can wait until morning for once." She carefully shifted the sleeping child to her own embrace, then frowned at — to her skilled sight — a visibly relieved Lind. "What were you thinking, taking her to the park this late? It's too early, she's going to wake up and be up half the night, then stumble through the day tomorrow."

Lind shrugged, though a faint blush tinged her cheeks. "I promised her that she could go to the park once she accomplished today's lesson. It took her much longer than I expected, but eventually her performance was satisfactory."

Mara's frown deepened. "Yes, but —" She broke off as Raven shifted in her arms. "We'll finish this after I get Raven settled." She turned and hurried from the room.

Behind her, a tense silence filled the kitchen as Urd finished off her can and Lind opened the fridge for a bottle of her own beverage of choice (a local ambrosia — nonintoxicating of course, even on detached duty, as a Valkyrie Lind always considered herself on call). Urd waited until Lind as taken her first sip from her bottle, then asked, "So when are you going to take that stick out of your ass?"

Lind's mouthful sprayed across the room. "What? !" she shouted, wiping at her mouth.

Urd gulped down the last of her can and slammed it down on the table. "You heard me. 'Eventually her performance was satisfactory', was that what you told Raven when she finally measured up to your standards?"

Lind carefully put her bottle down on the counter beside the fridge and crossed her arms. "I was chosen for this assignment by Kami-sama to train Raven in meditation and teach her to control her powers, and that is what I am doing."

"What Kami-sama chose you for was to be one of Raven's _mothers_, not her _drill instructer_!" Urd retorted. "She's a mortal child, not one of your Valkyrie trainees —"

"_Half_-mortal," Lind broke in, "and she _has_ to learn to control her demonic inheritance or Midgard dies!"

"And do you think it's going to be your meditation techniques that are going to do that? Or will it be her love for us and that sheer determination not to lose whatever the cost that that bastard of a father somehow taught him along with her sense of honor? But she isn't going to have either if you push her till she breaks while barely acknowledging she exists outside of training and your turn to take her to the park. Why don't you try treating her like a daughter instead of a recruit and —"

"Urd, Lind, enough!"

The two goddesses had been so caught up in their confrontation that neither had noticed Mara's return. Nor had a demon finding herself living on the outskirts of Asgard spoken with so much steel in her voice in the three years they'd been rooming together. For a moment Lind and Urd were shocked into silence, and Mara hurried to take advantage of the pause in the argument.

"I could hear you two all the way down the hall. I suppose we could use the emotional backlash from the clashing egos to wake Raven up and keep her that way until her usual bedtime," she continued, then smiled briefly as the other two blushed and looked down at the table. "Better."

Turning to her occasional lover, she said, "Urd, you're forgetting that Raven's an empath, she _knows_ how Lind feels about her, how much she loves her, the same way she knows how much _you_ love her. Different people show how they feel in different ways, but from the way Raven acts you know how Lind feels about her. Raven gets plenty of touchy-feely mothering from you and me."

Urd opened her mouth, but paused at Mara's stern look and finally nodded, shamefaced.

"Good for _you_, Urd!" Mara enthused in the same tone she used with Raven when playing her learning games. Her startled friend laughed, and Mara grinned before putting on a mock-stern look and shaking a finger at her. "But look at all those empty sake cans! You _know_ you aren't supposed to drink like that at home. Now clean up your mess and either finish the job somewhere else or sleep it off. I _really_ suggest you don't trying filling any of your potions orders right now even if you can still walk in a straight line."

Blushing again even more furiously than before, Urd hastily rose and grabbed the nearby trash receptacle. She swept the empty cans from the table into it to vanish in dim flashes of light, put the receptacle back and said, "I'll be in my room catching up on some magazine subscriptions." Then she strode through the doorway and was gone.

The other two watched her go, and Lind relaxed only to stiffen at Mara's next words: "Urd's right, you know. You're pushing too hard."

Unlike Urd, Mara's tone had been calm, reasonable, and Lind forced herself to ignore that they were coming from a demon. It wasn't like Mara had actually done anything since they'd moved in together to merit her distrust—except for seducing Urd, of course. _Not that she had to work hard at it,_ she though sourly, knowing even as she did that she wasn't being precisely fair — the two _were_ old friends, after all. But the fact that Mara _was_ a demon simply didn't sit well with the Valkyrie (once and future Valkyrie, it felt like sometimes, with her boring patrols and side assignment as a trainer) however much she had reluctantly come to like Hild's cheery underling. _Their business, not yours,_ she reminded herself yet again as she took another swig from her bottle.

"We have only a handful of years before Trigon activates his 'portal'," she said. "We need to get Raven as ready as we can if this is going to work."

"Actually, we have a double handful of years; if Raven isn't ready by the time she remembers Ranma's death I doubt she ever will be — which is why you're pushing too hard, we'll lose years if Raven breaks under the strain. And even if she can recover, how fragile will that make her when she remembers the Wall?"

Lind opened her mouth, paused, then finally shrugged slightly, rebuttal unsaid. "I will consider your words," she said instead.

Mara kept her triumphant grin off her face — another successful seduction. _Urd may style herself a goddess of love, but _I'm_ the professional._ "That's all I ask," she said, opening the fridge for another can of beer.

/oOo\

_Three years later:_

Urd paused momentarily at the sound of someone clearing her throat, then resumed carefully pouring the last of the powdered asphrodel into the cauldron. She was at the final stage, and this rush order had jumped to the head of the list for her growing home business. She carefully stirred the mixture six times counterclockwise, then stepped back as a puff of smoke burst up to form a tiny mushroom-shaped cloud. Hastily grabbing up a pair of hot pads, she removed the cauldron from its burner and set it on a stand to cool, then finally turned to the door to find Mara leaning against the frame. The platinum blonde demon/goddess lifted one eyebrow. "You're back early," she said in the English they had decided would be their 'home' language. It was currently the unofficial world language of Earth, and Raven had been picking up Japanese a bit from the dreams reliving her earliest memories as Ranma.

Mara grimaced, unconsciously hugging herself. "That particular parliamentarian proved to be unusually corruptible. It didn't take anything more than a little push."

Urd kept her own expression of distaste off her face, as she thought of just what that 'little push' entailed — she knew which bed she was going to be spending the night in, that of her 'friend with benefits'. _At least Mother seems to be easing Mara out of the _really_ ugly stuff,_ Urd thought. _How did she put it? 'A happy temptress is a productive temptress', and Mara hasn't been enjoying her work for a while, now._ It still felt odd for the demon/goddess hybrid to acknowledge her relationship to Hild, but after one of 'Grandma's' infrequent visits Raven had asked why Urd didn't call her 'Mom'. The little half-demon had been cutely serious when she had ordered her Mama Urd to start when she didn't have a reason she was willing to share, though the little girl had been willing to settle for 'Mother' instead.

"_Anyway_," Mara continued, straightening, "Raven's meditation time with Lind is almost over, and I wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten that it's your turn to take her to the park."

"I only did that the once," Urd groused as she put a lid on the cauldron.

Mara smirked. "Right, and at least three times that was because I reminded you."

"Well, this isn't one of them. See? Potion preparation complete, all that's needed is for it to cool off and settle for the rest of the afternoon, and I still have ... five minutes." She glanced over at the diamond-tattooed demon and suppressed a frown — Mara was still looking a little haunted, that assignment must have been worse than usual. But the last time she had mentioned anything about her friend's work out loud, Mara had gotten all huffy... "Would you care to join us?" she asked nonchalantly.

Mara brightened at the unexpected offer — the weekly park time, watching Raven play with the littlest gods and goddesses followed by eating out together, had come to be treasured by all three of her adopted mothers as alone time with their joint ward. "I suppose I can work it into my busy schedule," she replied, shrugging. "Are you going to ask Lind as well?"

"No point, she has patrol duty as soon as she's finished with Raven." Mara's question had _not_ been a surprise, not anymore — though in the early days of clashing egos and worldviews in enforced company, the fact that the demon had turned out to be the compromiser that kept Lind and Urd balanced _had_ been a surprise.

Urd set a countdown timer and ushered Mara out of her laboratory before turning to lock the heavily reinforced door. Having Raven's out-of-control power knock in the previous more normal door — and devastate pretty much everything inside the room — once had been enough. "Let's collect the limiters and Raven and be on our way."

/\

_That evening:_

Raven hugged her little stuffed angel Shadowlight, with one white wing and one black like Mama Urd's angel (a gift from Auntie Bell and Uncle Keiichi). She smiled as Mama Mara turned out the light and closed the door behind her, leaving only a dim nightlight bobbing above the small demon/human hybrid's bed. The day had been one of the bestest ever! Mama Lind had actually said she was getting pretty good at keeping herself calm and controlling her powers, and her best friend Glaedir had been at the park when she'd arrived with _both_ Mama Urd and Mama Mara (she ignored how much she hated how the limiters made her feel sluggish and heavy, at least she got to play with other kids), and the dinner afterward had been her favorite meal at her favorite eatery.

And now she would get to go to sleep and dream about being the little boy that her mothers insisted was actually her. Not that she was sure she believed it, however much the dreams felt like memories — she was a _girl_ after all, and Ranma seemed a little stupid and didn't read books at all. Ranma couldn't _feel_ people the same way she could, either.

And the funny man that was the boy's father would be in the dreams, too. Raven frowned — her mothers didn't like that man at all, she could feel it whenever she mentioned him to them, but _she_ thought he was funny anyway.

Yawning, she watched the bobbing and weaving nightlight as her eyelids grew heavy. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered what weird game Genma would come up with tonight.

/\

The first shriek yanked Urd out of a satiated doze and had her rolling out of Mara's bed before she was really aware of what she'd heard. She was fully awake for the _second_ shriek, though — Raven, heard through the spell that performed the same function as mortal baby monitors. Ignoring her robe, she rushed out the door and down the hall, an equally naked Mara right behind her even as a nightgowned Lind joined them from her own bedroom.

Urd threw open the door to their daughter's bedroom and stepped into complete chaos. Raven was writhing on her bed, tangling herself up in her sheets while the room tore itself apart around — tiny chairs and table, toy chest, clothes drawer, all hammered apart and toys, clothes and pieces of the shattered furniture hurling around the room. Even the bed glowed with Raven's signature black light as it lifted off the ground and began to shake, and their little girl was bleeding from where chunks of wood had hit her.

Even as Urd waved a hand to deflect several more chunks away from a still-shrieking Raven, Mara stepped around her and reached toward the girl only to be jerked to a halt by Lind grabbing her arm. She whirled on the Valkyrie to find her watching the toys and furniture shards whirling about the room.

"No, this has to be the Cat Fist training — memory, not dream," Lind said as she knocked another piece of debris away from the bed. "If you wake her up early, she'll be right back in that pit the next time she goes to sleep. Keep the bed stable, protect her from what she's throwing around, keep her asleep, and wait it out."

Mara froze for a split-second, then snarled in frustration as she turned back around to Raven. She placed her hands on the still-shaking bed now at waist level, and a glow spread from her palms to spread out and around the bed, chasing away the blackness. The bed slowing sank, the shaking easing off. Once it was back on the floor she sat down on it and gently pulled the rhythmically shrieking child into her lap, pinning her arms to her side. Urd and Lind stepped over beside them, one on each side facing outward as Lind's two one-winged angels, Spear Mint and Cool Mint, and Urd's black- and-white-winged World of Elegance manifested, the angels' faces grim as they also began to fend off debris.

"That monster threw Ranma into the pit eight times, right?" Lind asked as she grabbed Shadowlight out of the air and tucked the stuffed angel down the front of her nightgown before knocking away a piece of dresser.

"Right," Urd replied, voice shaking.

/\

Long hours later, the breathy hiss that was all that was left of Raven's screaming eased away and Urd and Lind slumped in relief as the shattered and torn furniture, toys and clothes settled to the floor for the last time. If they had been human, they would have been literally soaked in sweat. As it was, Urd felt the thirst for sake — lots of sake — like a near-overwhelming need burning at her core. And it was going to be long hours before she got enough to matter.

She and Lind turned to face the bed, to find an equally weary Mara still holding their little girl. Raven had relaxed from her taut-muscled writhing and was now shifting and making a sound that would probably be catlike if her throat hadn't been long stripped raw. The two goddesses sat on the bed, each taking one of Raven's hands as their angels leaned over the dusky child and began singing a soft, wordless lullaby. Raven finally went limp.

Urd whispered, "Keep her asleep a little longer. I'll be right back." She withdrew a reluctant World of Elegance back into her core, and rose to hurry from the room as fast as her exhaustion allowed.

A few minutes later she was back, now wearing her robe, with Mara's robe over one shoulder and a bottle and a cup in her hands.

Glancing around the trashed room, she opened the bottle and poured half a glass of a purplish, smoky liquid before setting the bottle on the floor. "Here," she said, sitting on the bed and handing the cup to Mara as World of Elegance again sprang out from her back and rejoined the other angels' lullaby. "Wake up Raven and get her to drink this. Lind, grab a shoulder."

"What is it?" Mara asked, holding the cup gingerly — not that she thought Urd would give their child anything harmful, but she'd been on the receiving end of a number of Urd's potions over the years, with not always predictable results.

"Muscle relaxant and a painkiller, a powerful one," Urd replied. "After all that, every muscle Raven has is going to hurt, and I don't want to think what her throat is going to feel like. By the time this wears off, we'll have had time to get her to a healer."

Mara jerked a nod, and as Lind and Urd gripped Raven's shoulders and upper arms, the diamond-tattooed demon sent a tiny pulse of power washing through the girl. The angels shifted their song to one of comfort, helpless concern on their faces.

Raven jerked as her eyes flew open, every muscle tightened, and her mouth fell open in an almost silent shriek.

"Easy Kitling, we have you," Lind assured her as she and Urd tightened their grip on the writhing girl.

"Hurts!" Raven hissed.

"We know," Mara said as she held the cup to Raven's lips. "Here, drink this, it'll make the pain go away."

Raven eagerly gulped down the cup's contents, and within minutes went limp as her eyes sagged mostly closed.

Her three mothers sighed in relief. Urd used the hem of her robe to wipe away the spillage from each corner of Raven's mouth as she clasped one open hand. Lind pulled Shadowlight out from between her breasts and tucked it under Raven's other arm then stroked her raven-dark hair with a hand that shook slightly.

"All right, plans for the rest of the day," Urd finally said. "Neither of you are going to work, I already called those that need to know. Belldandy will be here as soon Peorth gets to the temple to babysit, and while she takes Raven to Brynhildr to check for any problems beyond sore muscles, some scrapes and a stripped throat, _we_ are going to get some rest. Once Belldandy brings Raven home and my potion wears off, we'll spend the rest of the day — and however many more days it takes — with Raven until she's recovered." The chime signaling an arrival at the front gate sounded. "That would be Belldandy." Urd reached up to pull Mara's robe off her shoulder and held it out to her occasional lover. "Here, give Raven to Lind and put on your robe."

/\

_half an hour later:_

Hild sighed with relief when a stud on her desk started flashing, indicating her latest secretary wanted to talk to her (_needed_ to talk to her, rather — none of them ever _wanted_ to talk to her, even when they started to guess the truth just before she reassigned them). While the penalties for mistreatment of damned souls beyond their allotted sentence were severe, demons were mostly a rather sadistic lot. And while there was some (fading) entertainment value in catching them in their conspiracies to both hide their excesses and to replace her, the _hunt_ for those inevitable conspiracies was unremitting; she could use a break. Besides, thinking about Urd's call that morning reporting that Mara wouldn't be reporting for her latest assignment was making concentration difficult.

She assumed her usual slightly disturbing cheerful smile and pressed the 'accept' button. A view window opened in the air over her desk in front of the ones she'd been using to review the various department performance figures, showing the face of her current secretary (this one male, and didn't she have fun flirting with _them_ — it added a whole new level of torment to their punishment). "Yes?" she asked, in her perky voice with an undertone that promised pain if the interruption wasn't important.

"Hild-sama, Urd is here," he said quickly. "She says it has to do with your granddaughter."

Hild had no problem controlling her expression, she'd already been prepared by Mara's emergency rescheduling. "Send her in, send her in! I always have time for family," she bubbled. Maybe she would be lucky and the next time Urd dropped by he would send her daughter straight through. Though that wasn't likely — whatever issues sent souls to Niflheim, incompetence wasn't one of them, not for those she picked as her secretaries. It was supposed to be _their_ Hell, not hers.

/\

The door to her mother's office swung open, and Urd strode through. The young-seeming perky, tanned platinum blonde glanced over as the door closed behind her, her eyes widening slightly. "You look like hell," she said.

"Ha ha." Urd dropped into one of the seats in front of the desk.

"The Cat Fist?"

"Yes."

Hild waited for a moment, then sighed. "Raven?" she asked in a weary tone.

Urd blushed. She knew Hild acted differently when she visited, the Daimakaicho actually seemed to care for her adopted daughter, but ... "I don't know. She's drugged for pain and Belldandy's taken her to a healer while Lind and Mara rest. Physically, she should be fine, sore muscles and a stripped throat, a few scrapes, but nothing that can't be healed easily enough. Mentally ... don't expect Mara to be showing up for work for a few weeks, our daughter needs her."

"Not a problem," Hild said airily. "Certainly Raven is more important than the scutwork she's been doing."

Silence fell again, Hild contemplating her daughter as Urd looked down at her hands. Finally, Hild asked, "Urd, why are you here?" When her daughter looked up, she continued, "You could have told me the little you have with a simple call, you look like you should be resting with Lind and Mara, and you _hate_ my little visits. So why did you come to tell me in person?"

Voice almost a whisper, Urd asked, "Do you still have the ones that were on Raven's little list?"

Hild's eyes widened, then she leaned back in her seat and contemplated the bronzed platinum blonde with a sardonic smile. "Ah. So _that's_ what this is all about. Xian Pu and Mu Tse have received their punishments and accepted their lessons and moved on, though that cute little piglet's still around somewhere. He still gets lost, but his wanderings are restricted to Niflheim now, with its wide variety of punishments — the added random element is a nice touch. But they aren't the ones you are really interested in, are they?"

Urd shook her head, still looking down at her hands.

Hild chuckled. "So ... yes, Genma is still here. In fact, it seems he's going to be here for a long time; he simply will _not_ accept responsibility for what he did to his son."

"Good," Urd ground out. Hild waited again, until finally Urd asked, "What did you do to him?"

Hild's grin was much harsher than her usual cheerful smile. "I hung him up on a wall and made him available to anyone that wanted to ... make use of him."

" 'Make use of him'? How?"

Hild shrugged. "Punching bag, sex toy, hare for their hounds, appetizer, whatever. He was quite popular in the beginning, but he's been spending most of his time hanging in his niche lately." She paused a long moment, then asked, "Would you like to see him?"

After a moment, Urd straightened in her seat and took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, I would."

"You had but to ask." Straightening in her own seat, Hild brought up her virtual keyboard and her fingers flew across its surface for a few moments. Her light smile turned impish. "It looks like you're in for a treat, Guzroth has decided his pets haven't been getting enough action lately. How appropriate, considering what Raven just went through. Guzroth is my Master of Hounds," she added, swiveling her seat to the side to look up toward a wall.

Her daughter swiveled her own seat to follow her mother's gaze, and her eyes widened as a large virtual screen sprang into existence to show the stocky, muscular form that Genma had had when his 'daughter' had beheaded him with his own Family blade. He was running through a dank, dark, mist-shrouded forest — the trees deciduous, but ... ragged-looking, dark green leaves dripping with condensation. Tendrils of mist twisted through the vegetation, and all around were loud, eager howls of pursuing canines. Urd smiled — Genma's desperation was almost tangible.

Then from between two trees a dark form flowed out in front of him, a waist-high wolf-shape so black it seemed to be a hole in the world that swallowed what light there was, except for two eyes that glowed a fiery red. The former martial artist leaped over the sudden obstruction, tucked into a roll, killed his forward momentum and kicked up to catch the hell hound he'd just avoided as its leap carried it over him. It slammed up and sideways into a tree trunk with an impact that shook down leaves. Leaping to his feet, Genma spun to kick away a second hound that bounded out of the mist, caught a third by the throat to smash it to the ground — and the fourth slammed into his side, knocking him off his feet. A moment later, he was buried under more hell hounds coming from all sides. For a moment his screams could be heard ripping out from the pile, and then that pile came apart — each hound tearing free its own piece of its prey to carry away with it.

As the screen blanked Hild glanced sideways out of the corner of her eye at her daughter just in time to catch sight of a grin before Urd's face shifted into a more neutral expression. The demon/goddess swiveled back around to face her mother and asked, "What happens to him now?"

Hild shrugged. "He can't die ... again ... so eventually he'll reconstitute back in his niche until someone else wants to play — and he'll continue to feel what happened to him until he reforms." She paused for a moment — her daughter was enjoying the news a little _too_ much. _Don't let it go to your head, Little One, a steady diet isn't good for you at all._ "You'd better get home and get some rest, Raven's going to need you when your sister brings her home."

Urd shook herself free from her happy thoughts and nodded. "You're right." She rose to her feet and strode toward the door, then paused. Without turning around, she said, "You know, it isn't going to be all that many years before Raven remembers the Wall — and that you left her to hang there for a year before taking her down and offering her a job."

"I know." Hild's voice was flat, her usual air of insouciance absent.

"Come visit this afternoon. Raven needs all her favorite people around her right now."

"I will."

Urd silently nodded, then strode through the door and was gone.

* * *

And here's one of my longer chapters, as I tried to wrap everything up in one shot before giving up. I have another chapter a little shorter and one last that I'm still working on that may well be even longer to _finally_ wrap everything up.

**Wrin:** I didn't go into much detail about where she grew up, but think of it as an Asgardian sub-dimensional suburb for those few gods and goddesses that have children. But no, its name isn't Azarath, though Raven still uses the mantra from the cartoon. Yes, that chant has a different meaning (beyond being a focus) that I may work into a story later.

**Vld:** Yeah, I remember the earliest Teen Titan comics, that was actually the first comic series I ever collected, some really fine writing there if a little dated. And yes, there are significant differences between the two Ravens - the cartoon Raven is years younger, has some telekinetic powers the comic Raven didn't, and emotionally is less manipulative and less outgoing. She doesn't bring the team together to stop her father because she doesn't think he can be stopped (the team comes together to rescue Starfire and simply decides to stick around), and as a result of her belief that she's going to be instrumental in destroying the world she is quiet, withdrawn, acerbic and chronically depressed.


	17. Apogee

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

_Five years later:_

An eleven-year-old Raven smiled as she sat up in bed and stretched. Even waking up early, she was in a bubbly mood. She was finally getting real control over her powers and the emotions that made them so dangerous. Her life as Ranma that she had been reliving in her dreams had been easing off, slowing down as Ranma's age had passed her own, and her former self and his father had wandered into some absolutely _beautiful_ country in China. (Finding herself attracted to the girls she saw in her dreams had been weird, and the Talk resulting from asking Momma Mara about it even weirder; she wondered sometimes if being attracted to boys when she got old enough would feel the same way.) Her tutors were impressed with her progress (easy, when she enjoyed reading, mostly, though the demonology wasn't much fun).

And best of all today was her birthday, and _all_ her favorite people would be joining in one big party! Mamma Urd and especially Mamma Lind and Aunties Skuld and Peorth had become comfortable enough around Grandma that Raven's empathic ability allowed them to be in the same room at the same time with her for more than a few minutes. So this time, no party with the goddesses (including Mama Urd) on her birthday and one the next day with the demons (again including Mama Urd) plus Auntie Bell, the last few years. Grandma had explained why demons and gods didn't get along soon after her dream of the Cat Fist training. (Raven shied from the thought of that night — the hatred for her father that it had engendered had set back her training in controlling her emotions — and so her powers — to practically the very beginning.) Still, she was happy that her adults in the two camps had reached the point that they could get along in spite of the fact that one group tried to change bad people into good people while the other wanted to punished them.

Hopping out of bed, the dusky-toned girl rushed to use the bathroom, then threw on her robe over her pajamas and dropped into her meditative pose, floating in the air with her legs crossed, open hands resting palms up on her knees. She closed her eyes and took deep even breaths as she murmured, "Azarath Metreon Zinthos. Azarath Metreon Zinthos. Azarath ..." In the calm the mantra helped create, she carefully relaxed the walls she'd built over the years around the power that surged in her core, reached out as it flared, guided it, shaped it as she felt its cool embrace as it rose to surround her ... then felt her stomach drop as the world vanished around her. She hung suspended for a split-second, then 'oomph'ed as she dropped and her butt smacked down onto the floor — but _this_ floor was tile rather than carpet-covered wood. She kept her eyes closed tight as she fought the power cloaked around her back deep into her core, once again strengthened the walls that kept it bound.

Her inheritance once again safely locked away, she finally opened her eyes to find herself looking at her Auntie Bell standing at the kitchen stove she'd insisted be installed for her visits. Raven had long ago decided that _some_ people had weird ways of meditating, however nice they were — but she wasn't going to complain about the results. "Hi, Auntie Bell!"

"Good morning, Raven, happy birthday," Belldandy replied with a fond smile as Raven stood up and happily took a seat at the table where an enormous American-style breakfast — Raven's favorite, at least the meat part of it — was laid out, across from her 'aunt'. "That was very impressive. When did you learn to travel like that?"

Raven broke off shoveling bacon, ham and sausage onto her plate. "Uh ... just now," she replied, blushing.

"Oh, my." Belldandy's expression turned serious. "What have your mothers told you about unsupervised practice?"

The birthday girl's eyes fell. "Don't."

"And with good reason. You did very well, but what if you had gotten lost? Father only knows where you might have ended up." Belldandy quickly circled the table to hug the now distraught Raven. "It's your birthday so I won't say anything to your mothers, but I expect you to tell Lind the next time you train."

Raven sighed, but nodded. "Yes, Auntie Bell, I'll tell Mama Lind."

"Good. Now eat up while the others are getting here, it's going to be a big day."

/\

Raven squealed as the wrapping around what she'd already known would be a book tore away to reveal a National Geographic book on journeys of a lifetime. She opened the book and paged through it, staring at the pictures of all the amazing places on Midgard. Someday she was going to go there, to see the beaches and mountains, jungles and cities for herself...

Setting aside the book, Raven turned to the last two presents, the ones from her adopted grandparents. Grandma Hild's was a thin, rectangular box longer than she was tall, and Grandpa Kami-sama's was a thin, square box four feet on a side.

Glancing back and forth between the two, Raven decided on her grandmother's first, seeing how she was actually present. A minute later the wrapping was off and the box open, to reveal a long, sleek ... spear? _Most_ of it looked like a spear, at least, though with a couple of ... techno-somethings ... attached to the end of the shaft. Raven double-checked the name — yes, it was from Grandma Hild, not Auntie Skuld. Besides, she'd already opened Skuld's gift, and while she still didn't know what it was (to say that the Norn of the Future's "explanation" had been confusing was an understatement), it had at least come with an inch-thick operating manual; this didn't have any manual at all.

She looked up. Whatever it was, her mothers were _not_ happy, Skuld (now grown into a young woman, matured by the pressures of living on Midgard) was burning with envy, and Belldandy was ... amused? And her grandmother felt like she'd just played a wonderful prank on _somebody_. Turning to the star-tattooed platinum blonde Daimakaicho of Niflheim, she asked, "What _is_ it?"

"It's a racing broom," Hild informed her.

Raven eyed Hild suspiciously. She knew her grandmother loved her, but she also knew her sense of humor — this time the prank might be on her. "A _racing_ broom? Have you been reading Harry Potter?"

Skuld, Mara, Urd, and even _Belldandy_ snorted, though Lind looked confused. But then, the Valkyrie hadn't been one for reading bedtime stories to a younger Raven. For a moment, Hild considered mentioning the quidditch game she had set up once (with slightly modified scoring), before hastily quashing the thought. Raven would insist on seeing the recording, and with two teams of demons — and their innate toughness and regenerative capabilities combined with their typical demonic sense of fair play ... _Maybe when she's older._

"No, no, it's the real thing, the fastest in existence." Hild assured her, before glancing over at Belldandy. "Though quick thinking and fancy maneuvering count for a lot. I know you've outgrown your playmates, but with Gluhende Herz you can race with your Auntie Bell. She's really quite good."

Raven looked back down at the racing 'broom', a broad smile spreading across her face, before the smile turned back into a frown and she looked back up. "So why are my mothers so unhappy?"

Hild laughed. "I think they would have preferred I gave you some drums," she replied, then winked at Urd, her daughter rolling her eyes in response. "Relax, daughter, Gluhende Herz has some added features now — a wind shield and a body lock. They cut down on its speed a little, but when Raven rides it she isn't going anywhere she doesn't intend to."

"_Indeed not, Mistress. My new mistress will have nothing to fear._"

"It talks!"

"_Yes, I do,_" Gluhende Herz replied. "_I am a fully sentient artificial intelligence._"

"But ... but you're a gift? !" An outraged Raven lifted her gaze to Hild and opened her mouth for a hot rebuke, only to pause when her new 'broom' replied.

"_Do not be angry with Mistresss Hild, it is my nature to need a master to obey._"

"But ... but ..." Raven looked uncertainly over at Skuld. She was finding talking with something that she couldn't _feel_ to be ... unpleasant, like she was missing half the conversation.

The young goddess nodded. "It's all right, all AIs are programmed for obedience when created, though some may eventually exceed their programming. They need to be, they are like children in adult bodies."

"Okay ..." Raven said doubtfully, not sure she understood the explanation. But Skuld was the techno-goddess, if she said it was all right it must be, right? And at least she'd only used two sentences this time...

She put aside the thought for later, and brightened as she looked over at Belldandy. "So Auntie Bell, when can we race?" she demanded.

"Later this afternoon," Belldandy replied. "We have your birthday cake and ice cream first, and you still have your grandfather's present to unwrap."

"Oh, yeah." Raven ran her hand along the long 'handle' before reluctantly turning to her last present. The wrappings were quickly ripped off and the box pried open to reveal ... a mirror? She looked back up at Belldandy.

Belldandy smiled at her adopted niece's unasked question, but the girl could sense a hint of ... regret? Remorse? A twinge of old pain of some sort, anyway. "Yes, it does more than just show your reflection," the Norn said. "When you ask, it will show you any mortal on Midgard which you knew in your previous life."

"But why would I care about any of them, surely you don't mean Genma," Raven protested, shuddering. With the Cat Fist training, the man she now refused to acknowledge as her father had ceased to be 'funny' — she hated and despised him, and only her mothers pointing out that Ranma didn't know any better kept her from despising her former self for putting up with him.

"There is one you might like to see," Belldandy disagreed. "What about your mother? _Ranma's_ mother?"

"Ranma's mother?" Raven's mind flashed back to the earliest memories she had from her former self, of a beautiful redheaded Oriental teenaged girl in traditional Japanese dress, singing a lullaby as she tucked her little boy into bed. "Show me Ranma's mother!" she ordered the mirror, still in its box on the floor.

The mirror's reflection of the ceiling vanished as the glass filled with glowing mists before clearing to show the same girl, only now ... now she was a middle-aged woman, her hair faded to auburn and streaked with white, lines around her eyes, still dressed in a kimono. She was setting food on a low Japanese table as a tiny, wrinkled ancient being identifiable as a woman only by her long white hair pogoed toward her on a staff. The old crone was followed by two running children about Ranma's age, one with hair the same color as Mama Urd, the other's hair sea-green. Behind them a beautiful woman, younger than Ranma's mother, in a house dress with long brown hair brought up the rear. They all sat down beside a third woman already there, brown hair in a stylish shoulder-length cut, dressed in tight shorts and a T-shirt, about the same age as the woman doing the herding and close enough in appearance to be her sister. But Raven had eyes for only one of the people shown. "She's so _old_," she whispered, staring down at the silent image of her mother.

"Well, it has been thirty years since Ranma was born," Mara pointed out, crouching beside her daughter. She reached down to touch the glass over the green-haired girl. "This one is your sister, the others are friends that your mother and sister live with."

"I have a sister. I have a sister! Why didn't you _tell_ me! ?" Raven demanded.

The others glanced around as several flower vases on nearby side tables started to shake, surrounded by a faint dark light. Lind stepped over and knelt to lay a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Easy, Raven, calm yourself," she murmured.

Raven closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she sought the calm of her center, and after a moment the vases steadied. "Sorry," she muttered, than asked again, more calmly, "Why didn't you tell me about my sister?"

This time it was Urd that replied, kneeling and reaching around from behind to pull Raven into a hug as the image in the mirror vanished. "There was no point in telling you earlier — you couldn't visit her, and your grandfather decided only now that you have gained enough control over your powers that you won't break the mirror by accident."

"But I can visit her now, right?" Raven asked hopefully, only to shrink slightly at the regret all the adults instantly radiated.

"No, Kitling, not yet, mortals simply aren't as tough or replaceable as your possessions here, and you've just shown that your control isn't perfect yet." _And it's going to get worse, when you start remembering your time in Nerima._ "Now, why don't we have the cake and ice cream, then you can take Gluhende Herz racing with your Auntie Bell while we put the mirror up in your meditation room." She smiled when Raven brightened, then turned the girl around and pointed a warning finger at her. "Just remember, your mother and sister's lives are private — if you find yourself watching anything embarrassing, _stop_! And unless people are in danger, what they do in private stays private, you do _not_ talk about it with anyone else. Understood?" Raven nodded vigorously, and Urd stood, offering a hand to pull her daughter to her feet. "Great! So let's eat, you're making Skuld wait for ice cream."

"Hey!" the hollow teardrop-tattooed young woman protested. "I'm not that bad anymore!"

"Yes, you are," the rest of the goddesses chorused, and Raven couldn't help but laugh at the mix of their good-natured humor and Skuld's chagrin that washed over her.

/oOo\

_The next day:_

Nabiki walked into the house's dining room, this time dressed in practically formal blouse and slacks. She smiled at the feast laid out on the table and took a deep breath through her nose, sighing at the tantalizing smells permeating the room. Kasumi and Nodoka had outdone themselves, but that wasn't why the former Mercenary Tendo was smiling — _that_ was reserved for the reason for the feast. The day before had been Raven's birthday, it was a weekday so the children were at school, and so they were going to have a very important visitor for lunch. Others may have hosted divinity unaware, the three women were well aware of the nature of the guest that would be joining them.

The earth-haired woman glanced up at the clock on the wall. _Any moment now ..._ And there was a knock at the door to the bathroom down the hall. It looked like the clock was running a little slow, Belldandy was always _exactly_ on time. Nabiki strode over to where she would sit at the traditional low table and turned to face the door.

A minute later, Nodoka led the beautiful, apparently tattooed, apparently young woman into the dining room, Kasumi behind them with the last of dinner and Elder Ku Lon bringing up the rear. Nabiki bowed deeply, held it for a long moment, then glanced up at the blushing goddess.

"I told you that isn't necessary," Belldandy said, frowning sternly, though the twinkle in her eye told Nabiki she was on safe ground.

"True," Nabiki replied, grinning, "but I've learned my lesson — respect to whom it's due."

Belldandy's blush deepened as she sighed, but she let it go. This particular dance had been going on long enough to be routine.

/\

As Kasumi had insisted upon from Belldandy's first visit on, the conversation during the meal was dedicated to their own lives — Nabiki's latest successes as a day trader and suggestions for how Belldandy's husband Keiichi could invest his earnings as a highly sought-after motorcycle mechanic and part-time racer; the discovery of a love of speed on the part of both Belldandy's eldest son (expected) and Kasumi and Nabiki's adopted daughter (a complete surprise); the love of music shared by Ranma's sister and Belldandy's daughter; the latest stories from Kasumi, Nodoka, Ku Lon and Belldandy, highlights of the last year of parenting and their worries of the teenage angst and rebellion coming all too soon as hormones began to stir.

Finally the meal was finished, chopsticks laid across plates, Ku Lon bowed out over the usual protestations from Nodoka and Kasumi (giving Belldandy her own deep bow as she left). Kasumi, Nodoka and Belldandy (at her insistence over her hosts' by now proforma objections) quickly cleared away the dishes while Nabiki headed for a special safe in the bedroom she shared with her sister and returned with an old-fashioned photo album. She put the photo album in the middle of the table as the others rejoined her, and the mortals looked expectantly at their guest.

"So how is Akane doing?" Kasumi asked, leaning forward eagerly.

"She is healthy, and growing into a fine young girl," Belldandy replied. "Emotionally she is going through a rough patch, but she is well loved and supported. She should be fine." The goddess's eyes fell to the table. "I wish I could tell you more —" she began as she did every year.

As she did every year, Kasumi leaned across the table to lay a gentle hand on her immortal friend's arm. "We understand — if we knew more the temptation to seek her out would be too great to resist. It is enough that she is well, and that we may meet again."

Belldandy looked up, eyes shiny with unshed tears. "You _will_ meet again, I know it," she replied, "and we are all keeping an eye on her, even if our ability to intervene is limited by the free will of both her and those around her."

She wiped at her eyes, took a deep breath, and produced a manila envelope. "And here's the last year's photographs of Raven." Opening the envelope, she pulled out the photos and spread them across the table, and pointed at the latest one, of Raven in flight, hunched low on Gluhende Herz to lower air resistance with her short hair blowing in the wind. "Our children aren't the only ones that have suddenly acquired a taste for speed," she said with a smile at Nabiki and Kasumi. "She only received her racing broom today, and already she's pushing hard enough to scare her mothers. Urd is _very_ unhappy with her mother."

Nabiki raised an eyebrow. "Racing broom? I knew Harry Potter had been translated into every language on Earth, but I didn't realize it had reached Heaven," she quipped.

The other three laughed, though Nodoka's was a little forced — the similarities between Harry's and Ranma/Raven's situations, as slight as they were, had made it impossible for her to read those books to the children, leaving the task to Kasumi.

"I assure you, we have had racing brooms since long before Rowling-san wrote her epic," Belldandy assured them when the laughter died to chuckles.

The goddess arranged the photos in chronological order, explaining the events surrounding each one as Nabiki jotted down notes that would be expanded into entries in the album's companion journal, then burned — nothing to do with Raven was to be entered into any electronic format, however well protected from hacking or even unconnected it might be, and the photo album and journal stayed in their safe except when the children were occupied somewhere else. The pictures were as varied as usual, though mostly similar to previous years — a ten-year-old Raven sitting cross-legged on open air, eyes closed and upturned open hands resting on her knees; Raven sitting at a by now familiar kitchen table frowning studiously as a finger traced lines along a page of a large spread-open book; Raven laughing as the purple-haired goddess that had saved Akane's life threw the young girl in a pool, and the companion photo of Urd and Mara doubled up with laughter as the young woman Skuld had grown into returned the favor to Lind with a push; the dark nimbus that signaled Raven's power surrounding floating weights, _much_ heavier than the previous year; others of a typical life of a young girl — almost.

Nabiki touched one photo as Belldandy came to it, one of Raven in a dark blue leotard, her legs spread wide to brace her in place, her crossed arms upraised with dark light running along her forearms, shielding them. "This is new," she said, voice questioning.

"Yes, it is," Belldandy agreed. "Lind wasn't certain Raven was ready for combat training, but Raven insisted. No surprise given her previous life, she has been doing well in spite of what little time they have practiced. She came up with her bracers herself."

"Of course she did," Nodoka said distractedly. She was smiling wistfully down at the spread of photographs. While she had focused on each photo as Belldandy had come to it, her eyes kept drifting back to the pool scenes. The others glanced at her, and Kasumi scooted over and put an arm around the older woman's waist as Belldandy continued.

By the time Belldandy again reached the photo of Raven on the so-called broom, Kasumi was frowning. "Bell-chan, these are all wonderful," she said hesitantly, "but where are the photos of Raven's friends?" Now that she thought of it, had the number of photos of other children her age been decreasing over the years? And while she hadn't had many opportunities over the last few years to peruse the photo album and journal — not with two curious little girls in the house — she couldn't remember the name of a single one of the children in earlier years.

Bell sighed. "You don't see any photos of her friends because she doesn't have any." She stared down at the photographs for a long, silent minute, then looked up at the three waiting women. "You need to understand that while gods may look like mortals, we _aren't_ mortal — we don't grow the same way, _develop_ the same way. You mortals mature physically at a more or less set rate over a few years, and hopefully your emotional maturity keeps pace well enough that, with the proper societal reinforcement, you each are able to deal with that growth.

"But for gods, it works the other way around — physical maturity is determined by emotional maturity, and we are not in any hurry to push our few children to grow up. They have all of eternity ahead of them, what are a few centuries of childhood?"

"But that doesn't make any sense!" Nabiki protested. She pointed to the photo of Skuld pushing Lind into the pool. "Your sister has been in these photos from the beginning, and she was a young teenager in the earliest ones while here she looks as mature as any of the rest of you."

"True," Belldandy agreed, "but by the time you first met her, little sis had been living on Midgard for years. Dealing with mortals in all your pain and glory always speeds up the maturation process. And for the last ten years she's been living in the same house as _my_ children, and half-mortal offspring follow the mortal pattern for maturation — that has also pushed Skuld to mature faster as well, just to deal with them. If the previous centuries are any indicator, by living on Midgard, she has taken centuries off of her childhood."

She paused for a moment to give the three mortals the chance to absorb what she'd just said, then continued, "What this means for Raven is that she has matured at the normal mortal rate, if not faster because of her memories of her time as Ranma — and her friends didn't. It will take them centuries to reach the level of maturity that she will reach in a few years. Once Raven realized what was happening, she simply stopped making friends her own apparent age as she left behind the earlier ones and stuck to the adults in her life."

"That's terrible," Nodoka whispered. "She must be so lonely."

Nabiki chuckled, shaking her head, and tapped the picture of Raven getting thrown in the pool. "That doesn't look 'lonely' to me, Momma Nodoka," she disagreed, then frowned. "Still, I'd think that would leave her rather badly socialized." She looked over the photos again, then slowly said, "She looks like she has good control over her powers, isn't she mortal-safe by now? She could visit us, get to know our children, her sister..."

But Belldandy was shaking her head. "You are right, her control is excellent, she is safe around mortals now. But her returning memories of Ranma's life have just reached the point in the training journey where they are about to arrive at Jusenkyo, and all the madness starts. The memories seem to have slowed down to one day as Ranma per night, so over the next two years she is going to be reliving the chaos that led to her death ... and then spend the year after that reliving what followed. We are not certain what level of impact that will have on her control of her emotions and the powers they are tied to, but there _will_ be an impact." She looked at the suddenly stricken, sick expressions. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Nodoka forced herself through the shock and took a deep breath. "No, you have nothing to be sorry for," she said firmly. "The dishonor is ours, even if my daughter is still paying the price." Her eyes fell to her hands, clenched tight fists crumpking the fabric of her kimono. "When she comes out the other side of what lies before her, she is going to hate us for what we did to her, and we will deserve it."

Belldandy was again shaking her head. "No, you don't deserve it, not anymore. You aren't the woman you were before, none of you are. Nor will she hate you when she is finished remembering, not with what you have become since then."

"But the last time I saw her, she refused to even look at me. After reliving all that again, how can she not hate me?" Nodoka asked, voice quavering, fighting not to cry. Kasumi's arm around her waist tightened, pulling her against the younger woman, offering what comfort she could.

Belldandy hesitated for a moment, then said, "Father gave Raven a special gift this year, a mirror that would allow her to watch any mortal in Midgard that she knew as Ranma. We showed you to her — and the rest your family at the same time, including her sister. The mirror doesn't allow her to listen, but just watching you she will know that you are not the people you were, none of you. The girl that forgave Akane for what she had done will forgive you as well."

"May it be so," Nodoka said, wiping at her eyes, but sitting straighter.

"It will be," Belldandy said, so firm in her belief that, at least for the moment, the others had no choice but to believe her. Then she glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. "I am sorry, but it is getting late, the children will soon be out of school, both yours and mine."

"Of course," Kasumi said, instantly shifting into hostess-mode and rising to her feet at the same time as Belldandy, the other two a heartbeat behind them. They made their farewells (Nabiki again bowing deeply, grinning at Belldandy's resultant blush), and then the Norn of the Present headed for the full-length mirror in the bathroom and was gone for another year.

* * *

And that's the last chapter I have so far. I've kinda modified my decision to post the last in one big chapter, it'll be two chapters instead. However, while everything for the next chapter is written and I'm into the last one, I decided that this is a better place to wait. I'll be posting the last two back to back.

The bit about the different way Asgardian children mature is purely mine, but is my answer to a bit of a problem in the OMG! manga - Skuld. Throughout the series, Skuld has been growing in both power and maturity, just like any kid would. But she's the Norn of the future - meaning she's been around for a _long_ time - and her skills with _really_ high tech far outstrip her sisters. These facts do not mesh well. So, this is my attempt to make them play nice together.

**Vld:** Yes, Belldandy knows - about Hild putting on an act. Or at least, she's guessed. But no, she doesn't know where Urd and Mara are going to end up, though again she may guess. And you are right, at the moment Raven is more evenminded about demons and gods. OTOH, she hasn't met any more normal demons - the treatment she gets from Mara and Hild is far from typical. She knows this from her studies, but that isn't the same as experiencing it.

**janissasonic. net:** Ranma's love of martial arts comes through a little here, and Raven has a few good moves in the cartoons. But she's been too focused on other things to get into it. After everything's finished and she has both more time and more inclination, she might get back into it for practical reasons if nothing else. Those moves can come in handy for those times you have to close with your opponent or can't keep him away.


	18. Get Me Through December

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima.

* * *

_Two years later:_

A thirteen-year-old Raven frowned as she slipped out of the sweat-stained black leotard she had adopted as her training wear. Momma Lind had been on edge through the entire session, making it harder to concentrate on maintaining control of her powers while she practiced.

_No, she isn't 'on edge', she's _afraid_. They all are, it involves me somehow, and they won't tell me _how_!_ She paused for a moment to take a deep breath, close her eyes, and fight the anger boiling at her core back into submission. Sooner or later they'd tell her what was going on, until then she simply had to trust them.

But her nightly reliving of Ranma's life in Nerima made that hard.

_Enough!_ She bundled up her leotard and tossed it in the dirty clothes hamper, where it would be automatically cleaned and hung up in her closet. _You aren't Ranma, and your mothers aren't Genma and Nodoka._

Though from what she had seen in the Mirror, her original mother had improved considerably with the years. Maybe actually having a child to raise had gotten all that twisted honor and 'manliness' crap out of her system. _Little sis certainly seems to have turned out better than I did, the first time around._ Though her opinion of her former self had improved quite a bit since she started remembering the Nerima chaos. Ranma may have been a little narcissistic with a big enough ego for an entire platoon of Pattons and a permanent case of foot-in-mouth disease, but he had a good heart.

_Ranma..._

As Raven walked into her attached bathroom toward the shower, she paused in front of her full-length mirror and ran her eyes over her nude form. Her hair was the same color as the Akane of her memories, her bust size considerably smaller (though she had a few years yet to finish growing, out as well as up), but that was the only real similarities she could see with the girl from whom she'd inherited her body. Her face was narrower, she was lithe instead of muscular, her skin was the dusky shade that seemed to have come with the Seed of her new "father" ... no, anyone that had known Akane would think she was a complete stranger. But she was still cute.

For just a moment, she found herself admiring her naked body through Ranma's eyes. She whirled away from the mirror toward the shower, feeling her cheeks heat up. Her face must be glowing red ... though not all of that heat was embarrassment, or even most of it. _At least this time you weren't at the hot springs with three totally hot, totally naked older women that just happened to be your mothers, it was a week before you could look at them without blushing. And the teasing when Mama Urd guessed what had happened ... !_

An image of one of Ranma's favorite memories sprang up, of the first time he'd seen Akane naked when she'd walked in on him in the furo (not that even he had ever been stupid enough to tell her that). There had been nothing perverted about his perfectly understandable physical reaction to the sight, whatever Akane had claimed. _Raven's_ reaction, on the other hand ...

As she stepped into the shower and turned it on (the water instantly warmed to her preferred temperature), she briefly considered taking some extra time to explore just how 'perverted' her own reaction could be (at least as much as her thirteen-year-old body permitted — being that young with eighteen-year-old memories could be a hassle, especially when that eighteen-year-old boy could turn into a girl of the same age and took advantage of it from time to time when he could be sure of his/her privacy). But she reluctantly set the idea aside. Since Mama Mara had stopped getting assignments for Grandma Hild she had become Raven's primary teacher of scholarly subjects, and Raven had found the normally most gentle of her mothers to be totally unforgiving when it came to being late for her lessons. In half an hour, she would be expecting Raven for her lesson in the 'ecology' of Niflheim. _'Ecology' is a good word for it, considering the nature of most demons. I'll have to ask her how a society made up of sadists, narcissists and egomaniacs can actually function. Poor Grandmother._

Shaking off the idle thoughts, Raven grabbed the soap and hurriedly started soaping up (and sighed once again at the lack of time to take proper advantage of her shower time).

/\

_Ranma struggled against the tentacles that held her as a mansion faded into view, all white marble walls covered with tapestries her eyes shied away from — the scenes they portrayed were not something a naked girl being forcibly restrained by a strange _Something_ wanted to contemplate._

_It had all fallen apart so _fast_! It hadn't been more than a handful a seconds from Xian Pu showing up to when the redhead found herself floating over her own practically headless, disemboweled body — just before the red-skinned, diseased, tentacle-armed Thing appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her. _At least Akane tried,_ Ranma thought as she remembered her last sight of her fiancée, charging toward them with her Hammer upraised. _She did ... didn't she?_ Or was Akane trying to 'punish' her fiancée for being 'perverted' again?_

_Then the Thing carrying her turned and Ranma's eyes widened as a large bed came into view. "I would welcome you to your new home, but I don't think you will enjoy it much," her captor gloated. "But I'll enjoy it, _Oh_, how I will."_

_The tentacles wrapped around her shifted, slithered down along her torso to circle her arms and legs, then pulled her out straight with her arms stretched out above her head._

_Ranma instantly took advantage of the shift, bucked, twisted, yanked one foot free of the tentacles' embrace, and _shrieked_ her effort as she kicked out. But the angle was poor, and the kick aimed for the Thing's throat instead bounced off its shoulder._

_It didn't even flinch._

"_A valiant effort, but futile," it said mock-piously as several tentacles recaptured the errant leg before Ranma could try again. It stretched Ranma out along the bed with her hands pressed against the headboard, and the redhead felt cool metal circle her wrists._

_Freed of their task of restraining Ranma's arms, those tentacles slid their way down along her body. Ranma gritted her teeth when they paused momentarily to fondle her breasts before continuing down, taking control of one leg while those tentacles already there wrapped themselves around the other._

_The Thing levered its bulk onto the bed, and a bolt of pure fear shot through Ranma as it revealed itself to be rampantly male, enough to have Nodoka extolling his "manliness" if he had been Ranma or Genma. He yanked Ranma's legs apart. "A natural redhead, beautiful," he said, leering. "Yes, I will have to consider doing something special for Genma in thanks for trading you to me."_

_Ranma writhed, yanking on the cuffs around her wrists until the world went white with pain. "Kill you!" she snarled through gritted teeth._

"_Please try," the Thing said, "it will make breaking you all the sweeter." He shifted himself around to crouch between Ranma's widespread legs, effortlessly keeping them apart in spite of her best efforts to clench them shut, and leaned forward._

/\

Raven shot bolt upright in bed, shrieking to wake the damned as the water glass on her side table, knickknacks on her dresser, her vanity mirror, every glass object in her room shattered. Even as shards of glass swirled across the bedroom in a wave of black energy, she rolled out of bed. A wave of her hand encased the chest at the foot of her bed in the same black light and sent it smashing through the bathroom door, clearing the way for her as she flew through on the way to the toilet. She got there just before she lost the fight to keep down what was left of her dinner.

She barely noticed the hands holding her shoulder-length hair up out of her way until she was reduced to dry heaves. When they finally eased off she sat back into Mama Mara's embrace from behind and looked up to find Urd and Lind crouched beside her, their angels manifested and peering down over their shoulders with expressions of concerned sympathy as they crooned point and counterpoint of a soft, gentle melody. Raven accepted a glass of water from Lind with shaking hands, rinsed out her mouth and spat it out, drank.

As she handed the glass back, she babbled, "It was Ranma, I _died_! And there was a gross red tentacly Thing and he grabbed me, and he was going to ... to rape —" She froze. "Oh, God, that wasn't a dream, it was a memory — _Ranma's_ memory. He was about to be ... the next time I go to sleep _I'm_ going to be —" she broke away from Mara's embrace to lunge for the toilet bowl again, as the water she had just drunk came back up.

An endless time later, as Raven finished rinsing out her mouth a second time, she fought her rampaging fear into submission. When she did, her mothers' emotional states became much clearer: love, grief, fear, sympathy ... guilt, self-loathing. But no shock, no surprise.

She jerked to her feet and stepped away from her mothers, ignoring the glass shards of what had been her bathroom mirror cutting into the soles of her feet. "You knew!" she shouted. "You _knew_ what happened to me, what I was going to remember, why didn't you _tell_ me! ?"

"Raven —" Mara began as she stepped forward, stretching out a hand, only to freeze when Raven backed up out of reach. She dropped her arm to her side. "Raven, would you have wanted to know?" she asked.

Raven thought of days, weeks spent waiting for the night to arrive, the constantly increasing fear winding her tighter and tighter, eroding her control ... _What my mothers went through._ She blanched, shook her head. "No ... no, that would have been worse," she replied. "But why am I reliving Ranma's life? Why am I even _alive_? You always said you'd tell me when I'm older — well, I think if I'm old enough to remember being raped, I'm old enough!"

Demon, goddess and demon/goddess exchanged glances, nonverbal cues flashing between them, then Lind took a deep breath and told her.

/oOo\

Hild jerked awake at the communicator's chime. Early morning — _too_ early morning, and she felt a lump of ice congeal in her heart. Rolling over in her bed, she hit the button on her bedside console for audio only and sat up. "Yes?" she demanded, in her usual perky tone (though given the hour, she strengthened the also usual threat underlying it the perky cheerfulness).

"Hild-sama, I'm very sorry to disturb you," said her latest secretary, her voice shaking. Anastasie was past the 'jump if Hild twitches' stage, but no one likes to disturb their boss during downtime and Hild had made it a point over the centuries of emphasizing that point by coming down like the wrath of her ex-husband on whatever fool did so whenever she judged the reason less than adequate — another fine Catch-22, since she did the same to any subordinate, demonic or otherwise, that _didn't_ disturb her when she later judged it necessary.

"So, what can I do for you this fine, _early_ morning?" Hild asked sweetly.

"Your daughter, Urd-sama is here," Anastasie replied, voice smoothing out — once you've thrown yourself over the cliff, the decision's made.

"Really? So why are you involved? I already have standing orders to let her see me whenever she visits, whatever the hour might be."

"Because ..." Anastasie hesitated, then continued with a sigh, "Because she's drunk."

Hild felt the cold that had been growing in her heart as she became more awake flash through her body, her bedroom suddenly feeling like an icebox. "Drunk?" she repeated, managing to add a hint of humor to her perky tone.

"Oh, yes, absolutely plastered," Anastasie agreed, forcedly lighthearted. Apparently, she'd decided that now that she was _fully_ committed she might as well play along. "I'm surprised she can walk at all, much less more or less where she wants to go."

"Now, this I have got to see, send her in! Sitting room five." Hild hit the button cutting off the call, then sat and stared into empty air. _This_ time, Raven would have the support of her family, all of them — except her. It wasn't as bad as when Ranma was murdered ... it wasn't. _Right, keep telling yourself that._

Throwing aside the covers, she rose and grabbed her robe to pull over her nude body (a robe that was more than a little skimpy, another way to occasionally play with her subordinates) and strode for the door.

/\

Her secretary had been right, Urd was as plastered as Hild had ever seen her. And unlike Urd's usual benders, she was _not_ a happy drunk. Hild's daughter usually drank to have a good time, not to numb pain. Not this time. In fact ...

Hild waved for the guards accompanying her daughter to leave, then walked toward the well-stocked bar against one wall. As soon as the door closed behind the guards she brought up a virtual screen, checked the security, and her smile vanished as her shoulders sagged. "Raven's remembered the Wall, hasn't she?"

"Oh, y'guessed it," Urd replied, sarcasm thick in her slurred voice. She weaved toward the bar, then stumbled to a halt when her mother stepped in front of her.

"So why aren't you with her, instead of here trying to get even more drunk, if that's possible?" Hild demanded.

"She ran 'way," Urd replied, swaying slightly. "We called Father, let him know. He said, let'm handle it. Not like we c'n help, an'way, she hates us. Our little Kitling gonna get raped over an' over, an' we can't ... can't stop ..." Words failing, she dropped to her knees, arms wrapped around herself as she shook with heartwrenching sobs.

Hild dropped to sit beside her daughter and pulled her into her lap as her own tears flowed. She could remember a time that it had been _her_ on her knees, crying uncontrollably, the day her little one had chosen her Father's realm over her Mother's. Hild had known that at the time it was the best decision for her little girl, but it had still felt like a piece of her soul had torn itself out and walked away — and that time she hadn't been able to sneak away to her ex-husband for comfort. Instead, she'd left orders that she wasn't to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever, locked herself in her suite and ordered Niflheim's central computer, Nidhogg, not to let her out until she'd drunk her sober-up/hangover medicine, put on a truly massive number of power limiters, and drank until she broke down and cried herself to sleep on her bedroom floor. Just as her daughter was doing now.

_Though Urd isn't alone, and won't be sleeping it off on the floor,_ Hild thought. In spite of how horrible the circumstances were, it felt _good_ to be holding her daughter again.

When Urd's tears finally faded off into sleep, as Hild had expected, she rose with Urd in her arms and carried her to her bedroom to tuck her into the bed she'd left not so long ago. For time she simply sat beside her, gazing down at the tear-streaked face, one hand stroking the platinum blonde hair Urd had inherited from her.

Finally, she rose and walked over to her bedroom console, retied her robe so that it at least covered everything, and speed-dialed a direct line she'd had installed thirteen years ago. A few seconds later, a virtual window opened to show Mara's face. "Hild-sama!" the demon exclaimed in surprise, "Why ... ?" She broke off for a moment then nodded, relief plain on her face. "Of course. Is Urd all right?"

"As 'all right' as circumstances allow," Hild said, tone flat, bleached of all emotion. "She's sleeping it off in my bed. Has my ex-husband come back with Raven, yet?"

Mara shook her head. "No, Mistress, he hasn't. From the sound of things Raven lost control somewhere in the woods, but it's been quiet for awhile now." Turning her head to one side, she said, "No, Lind, for the last time, we are _not_ going looking for them! Kami-sama is going to be in the middle of some delicate negotiations, and take it from someone that knows something about seduction, the last thing he needs is us barging in and making a mess of things." Turning back to the Daimakaicho, she continued, "I'll report as soon as I know anything more."

"Very good." Hild studied the tanned face framed by platinum blonde hair in her virtual screen for a long moment, before adding, "I believe you can leave off the '-samas' and 'Mistresses' from now on — you are spending the occasional night sharing a bed with my daughter, after all, and it isn't like you are ever going to work for me again."

Mara blanched. "Hild-sama —" she started, only to break off at Hild's upraised hand.

"No need to explain, I understand," Hild said airily, "situations change, people move on. May you serve my ex-husband with the same flair that you did me ... especially these last few years." Even as Mara winced at the sudden mocking edge to her now-former Mistress's smile, Hild sobered. "Thank you for everything you've done for me and mine," she softly said, then shut down the call on Mara's stunned expression.

Turning away from the console, she grabbed an ear-plug and palm controller from a drawer so she wouldn't need to go to the com console if anyone called, opened a cabinet to pull out a decanter and glass and placed them on a bedside table, and climbed back into bed, slipping under the top sheet and snuggling up against her sleeping daughter.

/oOo\

In the middle of a brand-new moonlit clearing in the middle of the woods close to her home where she had played hide-and-seek with little godlings years earlier, Raven floated over white, jagged, sap-weeping stumps. She was in her usual meditation pose, legs crossed, eyes closed, her open hands palm up on her knees. Not so usual was the dark energy radiating from her body to writhe crackling around her. But her breathing was deep and even, and with each outbreath she chanted her mantra, "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." Slowly, the energy shrank, faded, withdrew into her, until finally only her dusky-gray skin was all that distinguished her from any other mortal.

Her anger and the power it fueled once again under control — at least for the moment — she ceased her chanting and waited ... and waited ... until, losing patience, she rotated to face her grandfather behind her, this time dressed in the robes of Western imagination. Voice conversational in spite of her glare, she asked, "Are you here to take your tool back to its gilded cage? I'm surprised you didn't send one of my jailers."

Kami-sama straightened, pushing away from the tree he had been leaning against, and floated toward her over the devastated landscape. "First, it's a home, not a cage," he replied just as calmly. "Second, they are your mothers, not your jailers. And third, you are our beloved daughter and granddaughter, not a tool."

"Really? You could have fooled me."

"No," he instantly disagreed, "they can't fool you. You are the empath, does it feel like your mothers see you as a tool?"

Raven maintained the glare for a long moment before her eyes dropped. She shook her head. "No, they don't."

"No, they don't. They love you. They would give anything to be able to shield you from what's coming, and the fact that they can't is tearing them apart. Urd's already gotten drunk and gone to visit your grandmother, she probably wants to share the pain by beating on Genma for awhile."

Raven giggled. "Good. I wonder if she wants some help." But the brief moment of humor vanished as quickly as it had begun as she began to shake, and her grandfather reached out to embrace her, sitting on air to pull her into his lap as tears started to roll down her cheeks. "Granddaddy, I'm so scared," she whispered.

"I know, Little One, I know," he murmured, gently rocking the crying girl.

/oOo\

Urd cracked open her eyes, then slammed them shut with a groan as the light she'd let through stabbed deep into her brain and bounced around with the echoes of the jackhammers pounding on her skull.

A giggle came from behind her, and the demon/goddess realized that the broad line of warmth across her stomach was an arm draped across her, the warmth along her back another body. She grit her teeth, twisted around and, gripping her courage, opened her eyes. "Mara, what did we get into last —" She froze as she recognized the face inches from her own as her mother rather than her friend with benefits.

Instantly, Urd was scrambling back, and for a split second she was in free fall before smacking down butt-first and falling back to slam her head against the floor. The impact seemed to blast from the back of her head out the front before reversing to smash back in.

She sat up and grabbed at her head as she whimpered, then glared up at her laughing mother, now sitting on the bed wearing nothing but an open robe. _At least it's opaque,_ Urd thought through the pain.

Hild smiled whimsically down at her daughter. "Urd, dear, you used to _love_ sleeping in my bed with me."

"Yes, well, I was a lot smaller, and _you_ wore more clothes," Urd grumped. "What am I doing here, any —" Then the memory of the previous night flooded back in, and she paled.

Hild saw, and her apparent lighthearted mood evaporated. She rose from her bed, cinched her robe closed, and filled a glass with a light blue, viscous liquid from the decanter she'd placed earlier on the bedside table and offered it to her daughter. "Here, this will take care of your hangover."

Urd glared suspiciously at her mother, but took the glass and chugged down the contents. She stiffened in shock as the effects of the potion slammed through her, turning her insides into an inferno, then sagged in relief as her pain vanished. Handing the glass back to her mother, she climbed to her feet. "Raven?" she asked.

"She managed to fight herself back under control," Hild replied. "Her grandfather brought her home, she's with Mara and Lind."

Urd flushed, her eyes dropping to hide her shame, but after a moment she took a deep breath and straightened. _You blew it again, kiddo, so suck it up and deal with it. Maybe if you crawl enough, Raven will forgive you for not being there when she got back._ "Well, we'd better get going,"

Hild's face lost all expression. "I'm not going," she said, voice leeched of all emotion. "I don't think I'm one of Raven's favorite people right now, do you? Perhaps in a few years she'll be able to handle seeing me again."

Urd tried to think of something to say, but came up short. She turned toward the door only to freeze when her mother added, "Urd, you never said just why you came here last night — I'd think as much pain as you were in, you'd have dropped in on Belldandy."

For a moment Urd considered just walking out, but vague memories from the previous night stopped her — memories of clutching at her mother and sobbing as Hild rocked her in her arms. They had to be drunken dreams, that couldn't have been the Daimakaicho of Niflheim, but they reminded her of times back before she'd learned what her mother really was. Slowly, as if the words were dragged out of her, she replied, "I was hoping for a shot at Genma and Rothgan."

"I thought so," Hild replied, her tone still serious. "I can't give you a shot at either — Genma finally admitted his failings and moved on a few months ago, and letting you at Rothgan would be bad for discipline. But I do have something else for you, an offer. More specifically, a job offer ... as the commander of my Furies. You'd need some training, of course, seeing how Belldandy wasn't able to convince you to join her in qualifying for Valkyrie, but that's not unusual for a new Fury. You _would_ be the first commander that wasn't a mortal spirit, though, so there might be some resentment from your troops until they get to know you."

Urd had whirled at the word 'offer', but froze, mouth open, her scathingly witty rejection forgotten, as the rest of Hild's statement registered. After a long moment of staring at her mother looking back, one eyebrow quirked as she waited for a response, Urd finally demanded, "Are you _serious_?"

"Absolutely," Hild said. "Mind, I wouldn't want you accepting the offer under false pretenses. My Furies are best known in Asgard for the vengeance they wreak on the worst of humanity once it's outlived its usefulness, but that only takes up a small part of their time. Mostly, they act as my enforcers here in Niflheim and shock troops during the inevitable rebellions. Without troops motivated by something other than sadism, hedonism and power hunger, this place would be ungovernable. I give my Furies the opportunity to slake their need for vengeance on the worst abusers both Niflheim and Midgard have to offer, and in return they give me their loyalty. Actually, I'm due a rebellion in a few years — thanks to my very public relationship with Raven, some of my subordinates have decided I've gone soft. But there should be time for you to see Raven through the next year and get in that training before the balloon goes up."

" 'Gone soft'," Urd repeated, mind whirling. When it came to Raven Hild hadn't gone soft, because she'd never been _hard_ — from the beginning she had doted on her adopted granddaughter. Urd wanted to scoff at the idea that it could be real, reject it out of hand, just take it as one more case of her mother pulling the wool over another naïve little girl's eyes. In fact, she _had_ thought just that when she'd thought about it at all, but ... _But Raven's an empath, she may not know what people are thinking, but she knows what they are _feeling_ — and she loves Hild. She _trusts_ Hild. When it comes to my mother she thinks I'm an idiot._

Urd had always felt that her daughter was being naïve just like she had been, but she was getting a sinking feeling that Raven was right — when it came to Hild she _was_ an idiot. Of course, that would put her in the same company as pretty much the rest of Asgard, all of Midgard, and every demon she'd ever met including Mara, but ... _But _Belldandy_ thinks like Raven, too. I always assumed it was just Bell being Bell, thinking the best of everybody, even the worst. But she's often right, what if she's right this time as well? And if she's right about Mother _this_ time, what does it say about Mother when I left?_

Urd blushed with shame as she remembered the words she'd thrown in her mother's face the day she'd walked out, but shook off away the confusion. She'd take apart her entire worldview and reassemble it later, right now she had a daughter that needed her, and whose forgiveness she needed to get down on her knees and beg for.

/\

Late that night, a bleary-eyed, terrified girl lying between Urd and Lind in the new king-sized bed they'd brought in and set up in its own new room finally slipped into sleep and began to writhe.

As she helped her co-mother hold the twisting Raven while Mara contained the crackling black energy radiating out from their daughter in undulating streamers and the scent of physical arousal began to tinge the air, Urd realized that it didn't really matter what her mother was, she'd already made her decision.

* * *

So, I'm _finally_ getting to the last chapters, whew!

The episode title comes from the song of the same name by Alison Krausse. It has a few youtube offerings, of which my favorite is the one uploaded by kitimastr.


	19. Rocky Ground

I originally published this under the name Anduril at Anime Addventures, with the only changes being a few corrections in spelling, punctuation and the occasional word choice. If you like the beginning of my story but think I've gone off the rails, or have your own ideas for a great branch-off, or think I'm taking too long to update and want to continue the story yourself, come to Anime Addventures and join in the fun!

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima, and certainly not anything owned by Warner Bros.

* * *

_One year later:_

_So shaken was Raven by the sense of Akane's presence from their brief joining that only the sudden coolness of her palm warned her that the half a soul that they had had to spend long minutes coaxing into her hands was gone, and her eyes dropped just in time to see the Seed vanish into the baby Akane's chest. At that instant Belldandy and her angel added their own wordless thread to the music of Time, a ribbon of sound that seemed to wrap itself around Urd's foundation of all that had gone before and lifted to mix with Skuld's endless possibilities, binding the two together into a harmonious whole — and Raven found herself falling forward, settling downward, the baby looming larger and larger until it seemed to encompass all that was._

_And everything went white._

/\

Raven opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. The long nightmare was finally over, with the end of Ranma's life for the second time — sort of. She just wished she could _feel_ the relief better. But that hadn't been an option for months, not since the night that her mind had finally shattered under the strain of the constant fear of the assault that each night's sleep might bring, and of the forced pleasure and humiliation from the all too frequent times that it did. That fracturing had left her disassociated from her emotional connections, barely able to feel her love for her family and the joy of happy memories, leaving her alone with the anger and hatred she'd inherited from her second "father" raging at her core.

Those emotional connections had been her shield from that anger and hatred. She'd tried to rebuild her fractured mind, but the best she had managed was to temporarily unite her broken emotions and lock away her inheritance — _keeping_ that inheritance locked away took up too much of her ... focus, for lack of a better word, for any union to be permanent. And without a permanent unity any chance those bindings had of resisting Trigon when he finally called had vanished.

That night she had failed, and doomed the world. Saotome Ranma had finally lost when it really counted.

_Enough, Raven, you _know_ what Grandfather told you about that. It won't be that bad, the souls of everyone on Midgard ... Earth ... that dies will return to Asgard or Niflheim for a time, and then to sleep until Trigon moves on and the Earth eventually recovers the ability to bear life. It isn't even the first time something like that has happened, more or less._

That was what Kami-sama had told her, and it had helped — had made it somewhat easier to find the calm she needed to once more master her inheritance. But it hadn't done much for the guilt that gnawed at her, and her Grandfather has flatly forbade her to even think about suicide. She'd considered ignoring him, but in the end had had decided he must know what he was doing.

Sighing, she dragged herself out of her bed and into the bathroom for a hasty, efficient shower before pulling on the uniform that Peorth had insisted on designing (not without several demands from the mothers that she make it less risqué). She looked herself over in the mirror — a black leotard with sleeves covering her arms and the back of her hands, a dark blue hooded cape with a circular gold-set garnet clasp, other gold-set garnets on the backs of her hands and making up the links of a belt, and dark blue ankle boots and wrist bracers. Peorth had said that if Raven was determined to be a fool, at least she could look the part.

Deciding that she looked well enough, Raven turned from the mirror to her personal com console, pushed a button for a preprogrammed message for Skuld, then picked up her spear-pointed, twin-engined racing 'broom' from where it rested against the wall. "Come on, Gluhende Herz, it's time." For a moment she half-expected the 'broom' to somehow wake up from its year-long 'sleep' to ask for one more ride, but however sentient it might be it still came with an 'off' switch it couldn't override.

Her bleary-eyed mothers looked up from their seats around the table when she walked into the kitchen, and Mara lifted the cover off the stasis unit in the center of the table and slid a plate with Raven's usual meat-heavy breakfast over to her seat, still hot.

Raven paused for a moment to shield herself as best she could from the onslaught of guilt-laden love and concern from the three women, then leaned Gluhende Herz against the wall and sat down, making sure the hood of her cape hid her face from view. "It's over," she said quietly, and began to eat. She ignored the spike of relief and concern mixed together, waiting for yet more protests to her plans, such as they were. But none came, so instead she ignored the growing tension and gave them a quick overview of what she had remembered that night — Ranma's opportunity to slaughter those that had put her on the Wall, and her meeting with Akane and her sisters.

Just as she was finishing breakfast the visitor chime sounded — perfect timing, of course, only to be expected for the Norn of the Future. The four rose to their feet, and Raven hesitated as she considered just leaving. But her mothers deserved better than that, and she took a deep breath, stepped away from the table, pulled back her hood and spread her arms, and fought to keep from flinching and pulling away as her mothers pulled her into a group hug. She was wearing clothes, and her mothers weren't Rothgan.

"Remember, you may be leaving but we aren't going anywhere," Mara whispered. "You can always come home again." Raven didn't respond, simply squeezing harder as Lind and Urd murmured their agreement.

The chime sounded again. The mothers reluctantly let go, and Raven gave them a faint smile — the best she could manage, as she fought to keep from shaking from the emotional overload she'd just been through even with the detachment her fractured mind gave her. "I'll let you know where to send my stuff when I have a place," she said, pulled her hood back up, picked up Gluhende Herz, and strode from the room.

/oOo\

Mara, Lind and Urd watched from the doorway until Skuld and their daughter vanished from sight into the light woods that surrounded their home, then went back inside and made their way back to the kitchen.

Once there, Mara opened the fridge while the other two sat back down to what was left of their breakfast. A moment later she joined them, handing out chilled cans before opening her own favorite beer.

"Uh, Mara, this isn't my ambrosia," Lind pointed out, looking askance at the can of Urd's sake that the demon had placed in front of her.

"No, it isn't," Mara agreed. "For once, you're drinking something stronger than that Asgardian Kool-Aid you favor." She glared at her co-mother until Lind opened the can and hesitantly took a gulp and made a face. _It's a start,_ Mara thought, then gulped down her own can, rose to clear off the table, and grabbed more cans from the fridge.

Lind suspiciously eyed the additional cans — they were all beer and sake, somehow Mara had left out her bottles of ambrosia again. "You wouldn't be trying to get me drunk, would you?" she demanded. She tried another gulp of the sake and grimaced again.

"Why would we be doing that," Mara asked, putting on an air of innocence as she handed a can to Urd.

"Because you think I've been bottling everything up too long, that I need to 'relax'," Lind replied. She eyed the can in her hand and tried a sip this time.

Mara sighed as she opened another can of her beer. "Yes, I suppose I _was_ rather blatant, wasn't I? I usually try to be more subtle than that, but you were ignoring my hints. You do need to relax, Lind, or you're going to break as ... as surely as our baby." Her voice quavered at the last bit, and she hastily took several gulps of her beer.

Lind finally looked up at her co-mother. "You could be right," she agreed, as two slow tears tracked down her cheeks.

Instantly Mara was up out of her chair and around the table, pulling Lind up into a tight hug, Urd right behind her embracing both co-mothers together.

Lind didn't wail or break down sobbing, she simply tightened her own embrace around Mara and listened to her soft sympathetic murmuring as a steady stream of tears soaked the demon's shoulder.

Finally the flow of tears slowed to a stop, and Lind let go of the Valkyrie as the huddle broke apart. "Thank you," she whispered as Mara handed her a tissue with which to wipe her cheeks. "Thank you," she repeated more loudly, including Urd this time. She dropped the tissue into the trash receptacle. Ignoring the tiny flash of light as the tissue disintegrated, she asked, "So, when are you to going to tell me what you two've been discussing when you didn't think I would notice? Did you guess Kami-sama was going to order us to give Raven her head and set up a fallback?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Mara quickly asserted, then paused as she realized that Urd had gone stiff. She turned to her friend with benefits (not that there had been any 'benefits' over the past year, and emotionally they were shading over into 'lover' territory). "Urd, you didn't!" she exclaimed.

Urd chuckled nervously. "Well ... maybe? I _might_ have suggested to Skuld that we could use some way of tracking Raven..." Her voice trailed off as she glanced sideways out of the corner of her eye at the purple-haired Valkyrie.

Lind gazed sternly back for a long moment, then stunned the other two by breaking into a broad grin. "Wonderful! We'll have to see if she managed to come up with anything. But if it wasn't about Raven, what _were_ you two were conspiring about?"

Urd and Mara exchanged glances, Mara cocking an eyebrow. Urd sighed. "You deserve better than to hear about this through gossip, and I suppose there's no time like the present. Let's go pay a visit to Kami-sama."

/\

"Kami-sama will see you now," Hildir announced from where he sat behind his desk.

Urd rose to her feet and paused for a moment as she fought to steady herself enough to walk. _Come on, it's been a year since you made your decision!_ She berated herself. _And if you've guessed right about Mother and Father, he'll have already heard all about it, anyway._ It was nothing she hadn't told herself numerous times over the past year, but that didn't help settle the butterflies in her stomach at all.

Mara laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Come on, this should be easy!" she said, tone deliberately light. "You told off Hild when you were the next thing to a kid, this can't be harder than that!"

"Right, well, I was protected then by my invincible ignorance," Urd retorted. She glanced sideways at an obviously worried Lind and took a deep breath. "Let's do it," she said, and strode through the door to her Father's office with the other two on her heels.

Behind them, Hildir waited until the door closed, then brought up his desk com and typed in a code. As soon as the call was answered, he said, "Skuld, Kami-sama needs to see you immediately." A few moments later he'd finished the call and typed in another code. "Belldandy, sorry to bother you, but your Father needs to see you right away."

/oOo\

"You know, this is a _really_ stupid idea, just heading for Earth and seeing what happens. It's not much better than running away in the middle of the night."

Raven glared up at the raven-haired young woman with hollow teardrop 'tattoos' on her forehead and cheeks, dressed in a T-shirt and oil-stained pocketed overalls. "Yes, Skuld, I am _quite_ aware of your opinion, you've expressed it often enough," she ground out before turning back to watch the tree-lined, tiled path they were walking along. The destruction Raven had wreaked when she'd lost control a year before was long since undone, and she'd decided to walk and take in the scenery rather than simply fly.

"So why are you doing it?" Skuld asked.

Raven tried to ignore the question, but paused when she realized that Skuld was no longer beside her. She looked back to find the youngest Norn standing several yards back, a stern expression on her face she had to have picked up from watching her older sister scold her children.

"Give me an answer if you want my help," Skuld insisted.

Raven tensed at the determination the goddess was radiating. "You can't stop me," she growled, black light coruscating around her fists and along the racing 'broom' she held.

"Did I say I'd try? No, just that I wouldn't help," Skuld said tartly. More softly, she added, "I won't tell anyone if you want, I promise, but I need to know."

After a long moment Raven sighed and relaxed. "All right, but no spreading it around." Waving for Skuld to catch up, she turned to resume walking. When Skuld was once again walking beside her, she asked, "Did you know that way back when my mothers realized that I was reacting to their emotions to the point it was interfering with learning to control my inheritance, they came up with ... buffers, I guess you could call them, talismans that muted the emotions they radiated?"

"They aren't talismans, they're devices," Skuld replied. "I made them."

"Oh. I should have known." Raven considered the new information for a moment, then shrugged. "You never updated them. As I grew older the strength of my empathy increased, at this point they're useless."

"Stupid!" Skuld slapped her forehead. "Idiot! Why didn't I think of that?" Glancing down at the shorter mortal, she asked, "Why didn't you tell us?"

Raven barked a laugh. "Yeah, right, like any kid with brains is going to admit something like that. Can you imagine the edge knowing just what my mothers were feeling gave me when it came to getting what I wanted?"

A split-second's thought had Skuld giggling. "Yeah, I could have used that," she agreed. "But what does that have to do with you leaving?"

"For the past year, Momma Mara's been crying every day and trying to hide it, Mama Lind's been refusing to let herself cry, and Mama Urd's been drowning her pain by getting as angry as I ever did on the Wall. What do you think it's been like for me to live in the middle of all that? And Grandmother's even worse. I'm just glad she's restricted herself to vidcalls since her last visit; that was a nightmare." Raven shuddered as she remembered the vortex of fear-fed self-loathing Hild's calm exterior had hidden. It had taken everything she'd had not to add to it by bolting from the room. Still, she was glad she'd insisted on Hild coming to visit, the Daimakaicho had been in better shape when she'd left. She was just glad that Hild had agreed with her suggestion (or at least pretended to) that the mothers would be less than happy to see her around for awhile.

Skuld blanched as she tried to imagine what it had been like for Raven. "That's terrible! But why didn't you _say_ anything? You —" She managed to choke back the rest of the thought: _— might not have broke._

Raven waited for a moment for Skuld to continue, then quietly said, "I am _not_ telling the women that raised me, the first adults to really love me, that their love is hurting me. And neither are you."

Skuld hesitated, but finally shrugged. "I did promise, your secret is safe with me. But if you are determined to leave your mothers wondering where they went wrong, why didn't you take Belldandy up on her offer of a place to stay? She'd be glad to have you, the emotional atmosphere would be a lot more congenial, and your mothers would be happier."

"No!" Raven practically hissed. "No, you're —" _— better off without me._ "No."

Skuld suppressed a wince at the undertone to Raven's voice and glanced sideways at her companion. She doubted Raven realized just how much she was revealing, at least to someone that had kinda-sorta grown up with her. She opened her mouth to argue the point, but finally said nothing. It wasn't like she could say anything that hadn't already been said, after all, and she had Kami-sama's marching orders from the meeting he'd called several nights before, after Raven had fallen asleep, for her loved ones — except Hild, of course. His orders to let Raven have her way hadn't sat well (Skuld had thought for a moment that _Belldandy_, of all people, was going to get into a shouting match with her Father). But everyone had finally agreed that Raven's experiences for the last part of Ranma's life and death wouldn't lend themselves very well to acceptance of adults overriding her decisions. And they hadn't had much leeway to disagree when he'd asked them to trust him. What were they supposed to say, no? No, Skuld's ability to interfere had been pretty much eliminated by Raven's intransigence and her Father's orders.

_Well, almost,_ she thought, as their destination came into view around a bend in the path — the tiled circle that marked the location of the gate to Earth. The gate's reprogrammable nature made it more energy-intensive and easier for Niflheim to interfere with, but it was also much more convenient. Besides, its limited and unpredictable use was a fine protection from Niflheim playing with it. Raven had been planning on letting it pick an Earth destination at random, but — "Let me pick the destination," the young goddess said as they approached the gate.

Raven glared up at her suspiciously. "Where?" she demanded.

"Jump City," Skuld replied instantly as she stepped over to the control panel, unlocked it and brought up the virtual keyboard.

"Never heard of it, why there?"

Skuld shrugged. "It's a city on the west coast of the United States, and I don't know why there." At Raven's disbelieving look, she added, "Hey, I'm the Norn of the Future, I get hunches."

Raven rolled her eyes, but finally nodded. "Fine," she said. "Oh, wait, I almost forgot." When Skuld glanced over at her, she held out her racing 'broom'. "I remembered how envious you were when Hild gave me Gluhende Herz, and thought you'd be the best person for it to go to when ..." She left the thought unfinished, and added sternly, "But no taking it apart to see how it works, and no waking it up until it's over."

"Aw, you're no fun." Skuld pouted, grinning inside at the faint chuckle she'd managed to wring out of her companion. "Oh, all right, I'll hold onto it for you until you're ready to take it back."

"Yeah, right," Raven snorted. "Let's get this over with."

"Not yet, I've got something for you, too." Skuld reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a tiny box, opening it to reveal a diamond-shaped blood-red gem sparkling in the morning light. "It's called a bindi, you wear it on your forehead just above the bridge of your nose," she said to Raven's questioning look. "It's an Indian tradition, symbolizing the union of male and female energies. It's perfect for you. Don't worry about it falling off, I've taken care of that."

Raven hesitated for a moment, giving Skuld a long searching look — the young goddess felt entirely too ... well, _predatory_. But it was Skuld, and in the end Raven smiled faintly and swept back her hood. "Go ahead, put it on. And thank you," she whispered.

"Hey, no problem, it completes your, ah ..." _costume_ "... uniform," Skuld said cheerily as she picked the gem up out of the box. She ignored the way Raven tensed up as she carefully centered the bindi before pressing it against the smaller girl's forehead right below her widow's peak, letting the tiniest spark of her power leap from the tip of her forefinger to the gem as she pulled her hand back. _And thank _you_ for accepting my little tracker._

She turned back to the virtual keyboard still floating above the gate's control console and quickly typed away for a few seconds, until a glowing circle made up of variously shaded white fractals unfolded into existence twenty feet off the ground. "There you go, a one-way trip to Jump City, USA."

Raven tensed for a moment, then relaxed when Skuld made no move to give her a farewell hug. She pulled her hood up and floated up level with the gate, hovered for a moment as she took a deep breath, then dove through the fractal-patterned plane and was gone.

For long minutes Skuld stared up at the glowing, shifting patterns of the gate before she pulled a palm-sized device out of another pocket, hit a button and waited impatiently as the virtual screen sprang into existence ... waited ... waited ... and grinned triumphantly as a line of text sprang scrolled across the screen. "Dimensional positioning system tracking ... Jump City coordinates right ... signal strong ... everything's green." _Not that I can actually _do_ anything except watch, whatever happens._ Sobering, she finally turned back to the console with a sigh. "Father knows what he's doing. He _does_," she murmured. "He always has before, and he does now." But for the first time, she was finding it really, really hard to take his direct instructions on simple faith. Especially since her expedited studies (thanks to her expedited maturation) had included a _lot_ of history, and her Father's chosen surrogates didn't always succeed, or survive, sometimes neither — all of them freely chose to accept their roles, and she had no doubt that her Father cared for each and every one of them, but that didn't stop him from using them up when the situation called for it. She'd eventually been able to accept the necessity on an intellectual level, but with Raven there was nothing 'intellectual' about it — it had gotten very, very personal.

A few quick seconds of typing and the gate slowly folded into itself and was gone. Skuld shut down the virtual keyboard and relocked the console (necessary to keep any children playing in the area from doing something spectacularly stupid), and was walking away when the console's communicator chimed ... with the particular pattern than meant the call was for her. Turning around, Skuld checked the caller ID and her eyebrows rose as she recognized the name of Kami-sama's personal secretary. Praying that he wasn't going to tell her that her Father wanted her to stop Raven after all, she instantly hit the 'accept' button. "Hildir, what's up?" she asked.

"Skuld, Kami-sama needs to see you immediately," Hildir said.

Skuld's eyebrows rose further at his formal tone. "I'll be right there."

/oOo\

Mara looked curiously around the office of what had until recently been her worst enemy (officially, at least, demonic good manners called for pretending they were all on the same side until the opportunity presented itself to stick the knife in). She was surprised at how cozy it was, with Kami-sama seated in a recliner away from his desk, across from a couch, all by a crackling fireplace — she'd been expecting something more along the lines of Hild's office, with its sense of elegantly understated raw power.

Behind her, Lind and Urd exchanged glances. Both of them had been in the office multiple times, and every time it had been different. But this time, except for the couch being curved so that two of them would be sitting across from each other and long enough for three instead of two, the room was exactly like when they had been offered the assignment of raising Raven. Neither of the two knew what to make of that.

Kami-sama rose as they approached, and Urd eyed the kimono he was wearing. There was a message in that as well, she was sure. When they came within the proper range he bowed, and the three women bowed back, more deeply. As they straightened he waved them toward the couch, refreshments again on the end tables. The co-mothers sat down, Mara in her usual spot between Lind and Urd.

"So, our Kitling is off to seek her own place in the world," he said. "I take it that Skuld successfully planted her surveillance?" He glanced around at the co-mothers' suddenly blank faces. "Of course I knew," he said. "Her tracker is a marvel of miniaturization, but it contains some very unique components that she had to requisition from Stores. It wasn't hard to realize just what she needed them for. So has she?"

"I ..." Urd broke off and cleared her throat. "I don't know. She was going to plant it while sending Raven to Earth, and we came here as soon as they left."

"Very well, we shall find out when she arrives." Kami-sama turned toward his recliner. "Before you begin there's something I have for you," he said, reaching down out of sight behind his chair, then straightening with a sheathed katana in his hand. The three women exchanged confused glances, then turned back as he stepped over and offered the katana to Lind. "The Saotome Family blade," he said solemnly as she accepted it. "Raven claimed it when she killed Genma, and used it in her fights with the others. She promised to return it to her mother if Nodoka did a better job of raising her newest child. Raven isn't divine so she isn't locked into keeping her promise, but I thought that it would be a good promise for her to keep, when the time comes."

"Of course, I will inform Raven that we have it when she lets us know where she is staying," Lind said.

"Excellent." Kami-sama returned to his seat and took a sip of his own drink. "Now, I suppose Urd and Mara have something to tell me."

The two named exchanged glances as Lind turned to look at them, then Urd took a deep breath and nodded. "Yes, we do," she said. "Mara has decided that she would be happier if she switched sides."

Lind bounced to her feet and shouted "Yes!"

Even as her normally stoic co-mother pumped a fist in the air, Urd added, "And so will I."

Lind froze, fist still in the air, then turned to stare at the goddess/demon. "What! ?" she shouted.

"It's not as bad as it sounds!" Urd insisted hastily, waving her hands in warding gestures. "Mother offered me command of her Furies!"

Lind's face went blank, and after a moment she slowly sank back down into her place on the couch across from Urd. "Command of the Furies," she repeated.

Urd nodded vigorously.

Lind stared at the demon/goddess for long moments, before sighing. Voice soft, she asked, "Do you really want a shot at Genma and Rothgan that badly?"

Urd's eyes fell. "Genma is beyond my reach," she replied just as softly. "He accepted his guilt and moved on just a few months before Raven remembered what he did to her. Rothgan, on the other hand ..." She looked back up, eyes burning with anger. "Mother can't just let me at him, but she has a revolt building. While she hasn't said so outright, I think he's one of the conspirators."

"Even if you are right, what about after the revolt is put down? What then?"

Urd shrugged. "Genma and Rothgan may be the ones that offended against my own, but they are hardly alone."

"I see," Lind mused. "And as a Fury you'll be limited to reaping the souls of the self-condemned and keeping Hild's underlings in line, not involved with the seductions, bargainings or punishment details."

Urd nodded again, though more sedately this time. "That's right," she agreed.

It was Lind's turn to shrug. "That's not so bad, then."

Mara and Urd's jaws dropped in shock.

Lind deepened that shock by actually _smiling_. "What, you expected me to go into a rant about how Urd's been manipulated by Hild into betraying everything she's supposed to stand for just for petty revenge? There's nothing 'petty' about the revenge Furies are after. The truth is that the Valkyrie and Furies have a lot of respect for each other. Oh, sure, we think they're revenge-driven fanatics all too willing to shoot first and ask questions later and carpet-bomb their targets when they do, while they think we're emotionally stunted rules-lawyering nitpickers with — how did you so crudely phrase it, Urd, those years ago when you read me the riot act? — with sticks up our asses, that keep getting in their way." Lind's smile broadened when Urd's blush turned her face a bright scarlet. "But we respect each other's fighting abilities, we Valkyrie have no problem at all with what happens to Furies' targets when they get it right, and we share the same low opinions of demons, present company excepted."

"Interesting. You say all of the Valkyrie feel that way?"

The three women froze, then their heads whipped around as Lind turned pale as a ghost — they'd been so caught up in their family drama that they'd managed to forget that Kami-sama was sitting in his recliner and listening to every word. The purple-haired Valkyrie stammered, forced herself to stop, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them again and nodded. "Pretty much, yes."

"Good," Kami-sama replied, then chuckled at the sighs of relief from his three guests before smiling approvingly at Lind. "While we have to always keep watch to prevent them from excesses, the Furies do good work both in culling humanity of some of its worst and so protecting the rest, and in the restraint they impose on Hild's demons. I am happy that my Fist has not forgotten that.

"But Daughter, this course comes with a heavy price," he continued soberly as he switched his focus to Urd. She felt the singing tension at her core ease at the lack of condemnation or disappointment in his eyes, only loving concern. "The Valkyries will be almost the only ones that make that distinction between the Furies and the rest of Hild's people. There is Mara, here, and your sisters will love you whatever you do. Peorth will most likely follow Lind's lead in this. Beyond that, I doubt you will have more than a handful of friends left in Asgard — the rest will feel that you have betrayed them and all that they believe in, and react accordingly. I cannot correct their misapprehension without risking fatally undercutting the Furies' position in Niflheim, and those that take your side will not be helped by the rumors that have circulated respecting your assignment as Raven's mother and how it relates to your performance of your assignment overseeing Akane before that. Are you prepared to so thoroughly abandon all that you have built in your time with us?"

Urd nodded. I am," she replied, voice steady. But her hand had sought out Mara's and the demon was fighting not to wince as the strength of her sometime lover's grip revealed the effort it took for her to control her mix of pain, anger and confusion. _Rumors? What rumors? I haven't heard —_ She shook off the thought — she'd obviously been even more out of the loop since becoming a mother than she'd thought, but she had more important things to focus on right now.

"And World of Elegance?" Kami-sama asked. "You would take your angel into Hell with you?"

"No." Now Mara _did_ wince, as Urd's hand tightened even further. "I know I can't keep my Domain as Norn of the Past, can you give it to Mara?"

Kami-sama nodded instantly. "Not only can I, she is the best available choice. Her close relationship with you will make it easier for your sisters to accept her — to trust her — as deeply as they need to than anyone else in Asgard."

"Good," Urd said over Mara's surprised protest, "Mara doesn't have a Familiar, so I thought I would pass World of Elegance on to her as well, ask them to look after each other for me."

Glancing over at her childhood friend, she added, "I know I'm dumping a lot on you, but _someone_ has to take over the Domain, and I want it to be you. Lind's the only other one that would really understand the circumstances, and she already has a career that she loves. And ..." She paused to clear the lump in her throat. "And there's _especially_ no one else that I would ask to look after World of Elegance for me."

Mara smiled tremulously, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Of course, I'll look after World of Elegance for you. And I suppose while I'm at it I can't go too far wrong as Norn of the Past with your sisters to look after me." Then she leaned over, kissed Urd on the cheek, and whispered, "Could you ease up on my hand?"

"Oops, sorry." Urd blushed and instantly let go, only for Mara to reclaim her hand.

"Holding my hand is sweet, just not so ... ah, enthusiastically," Mara said with a grin, and what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle from Lind. The demon sobered as she looked over at Kami-sama. "I would be happy to fill Urd's responsibilities as best I am able."

"Are you certain?" Kami-sama asked. "You do remember that you will not have the protection of the doublet system for a time — we will have to break your link with the system so that any demons that attack you will not also be targeting whichever god you are currently linked to, and new links cannot be forged until the next time we have enough children to provide a true random element. That temporary lack of protection will make you an especially attractive target."

Mara nodded. "Urd already pointed that out to me, but she didn't need to. I'd remembered."

For a long moment he simply sat and looked at her, a searching gaze that seemed to pierce through to the very bottom of her soul, then nodded when she managed to force her eyes to stay level with his. "Very well," he finally said, "then there is no time like the present. Hild?"

The three co-mothers stiffened as the _presence_ of the Daimakaicho of Niflheim washed over them, then whirled in their seats to look behind them to find the star-marked blonde rising to her feet from a recliner in what had been an empty corner.

Her usual threat-edged perkiness was absent, her cheeks wet with tears, and they scrambled to their feet as she strode around the couch to embrace her ex-husband. "Thank you," she murmured, just loud enough for the others to hear.

Urd and Mara exchanged glances, then looked over at Lind staring wide-eyed at the sight. "I'll pay up later," Mara muttered.

"Take your time, you're going to be busy," Urd replied. "Just be glad you rejected the first bet I offered. What clued you in?"

"She was off a bit when she spoke to me, the last time you got drunk and dropped in on her. Just enough to make me wonder, a little."

"And why didn't either of you mention this to me?" Lind murmured, so intent on the embracing pair that she'd believed to be mortal enemies that she missed Urd's sudden stiffness at the reference to the worst day of their long lives.

"I didn't think you'd believe it," Urd replied. "I wasn't sure I believed it, myself."

"Fair enough."

Then Hild again shocked the co-mothers by breaking her hold on her ex-husband to turn and embrace her daughter. "I was so afraid that you would back out at the last minute, thank you!" Hild whispered. "Welcome home!"

Urd hesitantly returned the embrace, stunned speechless by the tremors she could feel running through her mother's body.

"Lind, Mara." At the mention of their names the demon and Valkyrie looked away from the mother and daughter over at Kami-sama. "Hild and I would prefer it if you didn't mention our collusion to anyone."

"Of course, Sir," Lind instantly replied. "I would prefer that my friends and shield sisters and brothers think that I'm sane."

Mara nodded her head vigorously. "Absolutely," she agreed. "But what about Urd's sisters?"

"That will not be a problem," he replied. He stepped over to the still embracing pair and laid a hand on Hild's shoulder. "Hild-chan, we need to start."

Hild took a deep breath, then reluctantly let go of her daughter and stepped back. "Right," she said, voice firm. "You and I can handle the initial steps to make Mara one of yours and break her connection to the doublet system, but we'll need Belldandy and Skuld for transferring over Urd's domain."

Kami-sama actually _grinned_, and said in a raised voice, "Hildir?"

There was no response, but a few moments later a door appeared in the wall where the co-mothers had entered earlier, and the other two Norns stepped into the room.

As they approached, an apparently furious Skuld striding ahead, Hild quirked an eyebrow at her ex. "After all these millennia, you _still_ like to play the know-all show off," she said with a sigh. Even as he chuckled, Skuld marched right up to the Daimakaicho and shook a finger in her face. "You big meanie!" the youngest Norn scolded in as childish a tone as she could manage, "why didn't you _tell_ us?"

Hild stared wide-eyed at the young goddess in oil-stained overalls, then broke into peals of laughter — _pure_ laughter, untinged by mockery, that had everyone else in the room joining in. When the levity finally died down, Hild asked, "Did you manage to put a tracker on Raven?"

Skuld tensed, glanced sideways at Kami-sama, then gusted a light sigh of relief when he smiled. "Yes, I did," she enthused, "right in the middle of her forehead!" She pulled her Personal Data Assistant out of one of the pockets of her overalls, set it to hover in the air in front of her, hit the button that brought up the virtual keyboard and screen, and typed rapidly. Within seconds a hologram sprang up showing Raven walking down a city street, her dark blue cape pulled closed around her with its hood up to shield her face from both the sun and the stares from the people around her. "It's keyed to her empathy and emotional state," she said, and followed up with a stream of technical jargon that had the demon and other goddesses instantly lost.

Urd gently slapped the back of her head. "Speak a language we can understand!" she insisted even as she failed to suppress her smile. It was good to know that some things never changed.

Skuld blushed. "Oops, sorry," she muttered, then tried again with a sidelong glance at her older sister. "Okay, to dumb it down for the numbskulls, what I said is that we'll be able to track her anywhere on Earth or any of its ancillary dimensions like Niflheim and Asgard, Dreamland, the Faerie Realms, wherever; and we'll receive alerts any time her emotions or the emotions of those around her spike. Mostly, anyway; it'll filter out embarrassment, attraction, disgust, that kind of thing — just ping us for anger, panic, fear, emotions like that." She _definitely_ wasn't going to mention her automated recording loop, and the way it would stop looping when Raven's embarrassment spiked to preserve a record — just in case Raven needed some ... ah, _encouragement_ later. "I sent links to everyone's personal sites while Bell and I were watching what was going on in here, waiting for our cue."

With her last words her cheerful geek mode drained away. She shut down her PDA and put it back in its pocket, and turned to her sister. "Urd, are you _really_ sure about this?"

Urd, finding herself suddenly too choked up to speak, simply nodded.

The youngest Norn stepped over and embraced her half-sister. "We're gonna miss you," she whispered.

Urd reflected that it was certainly turning out to be a banner day for hugs as she returned the embrace, uncaring of possible oil stains on her own (in her opinion) stylishly sexy outfit. "Easy, Squirt, I'll still be your sister, and we'll still see each other," she assured her. "So long as Raven lives, I'll be living with Lind and Mara where we have been — we told our baby we'd still be there if she needed us."

"But even if she beats the Devourer that'll only be a few decades, a century at most. And even before then, it won't be the same."

"No, it won't, but that's life — nothing stays the same forever, even for us."

Urd looked up at her middle sister, and Belldandy nodded her agreement, her own eyes bright with unshed tears. "Urd is right, Skuld," she said softly, "and we need to get started. I need to be home in a few hours for when the children get out of school."

Urd felt Skuld's nod against her shoulder, then the raven-haired goddess reluctantly released her. "Right, let's do it."

/\

Mara staggered as the light faded, and Hild and Kami-sama let go of her hands and stepped away. Before Urd could step forward to steady her, the former demon steadied herself, then spun in place with her arms stretched out wide, the previously red elongated slashes and double-triangles on her forehead and cheeks now glowing blue. "This is _incredible_!" she caroled. "I feel light as a feather."

"It's the lack of anger that all demons carry everywhere with them — though most that bother to think about it consider it to be a source of strength, not a burden," Hild said, smiling at the antics of her now-former lackey.

"Urd, why didn't they offer this to you?" Mara asked.

"It was suggested, I refused," Urd said.

"Yes, I remember the official complaint that little incident resulted in," Kami-sama commented. "The language you used on your unfortunate tutor went well beyond intemperate into purely demonic."

Urd blushed. "I was new, still learning!" she protested.

"Yes, and you learned very well, only with a different tutor. Several different tutors now that I think on it, you chased away a few," Kami-sama teased to accompanying chuckles and giggles.

Urd's blush turned fiery. "I am what I am, if they couldn't deal with it, then they could take their arrogant smirky attitudes and —" She broke off, and the chuckles and giggles turned into laughter as her blush actually darkened even further to almost purple. She finally shrugged with a wry grin.

A gently smiling Kami-sama waited until the laughter died away, then said, "Urd, it's your turn."

As a new, intricate ceremonial pattern flared to silver life around her and Mara, and Hild and Kami-sama took positions on opposite sides of the outer circle, Urd took a deep breath and turned to her sisters. "Bell? Skuld?"

Her sisters instantly sobered. Bell walked over to join Mara and Urd, but Skuld paused long enough to hand her PDA to Lind. She pointed at two glowing buttons out of the multitude that covered its top side. "The first one activates the view function for Raven's tracker, the second turns off the emotions spike alert I mentioned. Do _not_ push any of the other buttons." When Lind nodded, she joined Mara and her sisters, Mara and Urd gripping each other's hands and Belldandy with her hands on their shoulders.

As soon as Skuld placed her own hands on Mara and Urd's shoulders, Kami-sama and Hild raised their arms and the light of the pattern centered around the four seemed to solidify into glowing walls reaching to the ceiling. First Urd, then Belldandy and finally Skuld lifted their voices in wordless chorus and the room seemed to fill with the glory and pain of all that had gone into the rise of the ugly-beautiful-terrible-magnificent human race, and all the dire, glorious possibilities that lay before it.

For long minutes Mara listened, until she felt compelled to add her own soaring thread to the timeless song, weaving among the other threads to wrap itself around and merge with Urd's deep foundational base until they were indistinguishable, their combined volume almost drowning out the other two voices.

With that merger Urd slowly lowered the volume of her own voice, and with the diminishing sound she felt her connection to the length and breadth of history — the solid foundation that had given a young demon-raised hybrid the calming strength she'd needed to give her divine side free rein — fade and finally vanish with her ended song as if it had never been. Even as the soaring tripartite song of life continued without her, she lifted Mara's hands to join them with her sisters' hands on her shoulders, then let go and stepped away from the three Norns into a world that suddenly seemed infinitely smaller than it had only a little while before.

With Urd's separation, the Norns reversed the beginning of their song — first Skuld, then Belldandy, and finally Mara bringing each thread of their song to an end. In the ringing silence the walls of light sank into the glowing pattern surrounding them. Then the pattern vanished, and it was over.

For a long minute everyone in the room stood in place in awe of the music of the Norns in their full glory, even Skuld and Belldandy stunned at the impact of the rare full joining. Lind was frozen in place, tears streaming down her face and Skuld's PDA in her hand dangling forgotten at her side. Mara stared into empty space, overwhelmed by her new connection to the whole of humanity's past. And Urd was struggling to accept the massive hole in her soul.

Finally, Hild shook herself out of her daze, glanced over at Kami-sama, and nodded toward Mara. He nodded and walked over to his new Norn and placed a hand on her forehead. After a moment, she drew in a shuddering breath and her wide eyes focused on his face. "Easy," he murmured, "I know it is a lot to take in all at once. The block I just placed will fade as you adjust." Mara jerked a nod, then looked over with concern at Urd.

As Kami-sama took care of his newest goddess, Hild stepped over beside Urd, lifting a hand to gently grip her daughter's shoulder. "It's been so long since I had heard the Norns' full lifesong in all its glory that I'd forgotten what I was asking you to give up. I'm sorry."

Urd reached up to place a hand on her mother's as she smiled reassuringly at her lover now looking at her. (Yes, she decided, she and Mara were well past the 'friends with benefits' stage.) "Don't be," she said. "I knew what I was giving up, and I didn't do it for you — I did it for Raven, and all those like her." Sucking in a deep breath, she continued, "And we aren't quite done, there's still World of Elegance to take care of. Mara, are you ready?"

Mara opened her mouth to ask once more if Urd was _sure_, paused as she took in her lover's tight, determined expression, and finally agreed with a simple nod.

Unlike the transfer of Domain they had just performed, transferring an Angel was deceptively simple. Urd focused on the other life dwelling at the core of her being, stepped over to Mara and with one finger tilted her head up for a gentle kiss, visualized that life shifting from her core through their lips into Mara — and instantly realized something was wrong. It hadn't worked. She stepped back, confused. "Wh-what? Why ... ?"

"Why didn't it work?" her Father said. She looked over to find him smiling. "You forgot something, Urd, to check if World of Elegance was willing to be transferred — your angels may exist to serve you, but they are not automatons. They have wills of their own, that can be as strong as any goddess. Usually, that will is in accordance with their gods and goddesses, but not always."

Urd stared at her Father for a moment, then focused inward. _World of Elegance?_ Instantly, her Angel sprang forth, unique among Angels with her hair raven-dark on one side and platinum blonde on the other, the feathered wings extending from the back of her shoulders split to match her hair, and swirls of black running along her arms and down her back and sides, circling her torso before vanishing into the twisting ribbons of light and power that connected her to her mistress. She twisted around and looked down to face Urd, face stern and arms crossed.

"World of Elegance, please, you _have_ to accept Mara," Urd begged. "She'll love you as much as I do, and she needs help."

World of Elegance shook her head.

"But I'll be bringing my demonic side to the fore. If you stay with me, you'll Sleep. If you go with Mara, we'll at least be able to see each other sometimes."

Again, World of Elegance shook her head, and stretched out one wing — the one covered by black feathers. Uncrossing her arms, she ran her hands along the black swirls running along the surface of her otherwise unblemished skin.

_Oh, right, World of Elegance shares my nature,_ Urd thought. "Okay, so you wouldn't Sleep, but what I'm going to be involved in ... what I'm going to do ... it's going to get ugly, I don't want you to have to be a part of it!"

World of Elegance finally smiled, then leaned down to add another hug to Urd's total for the day. After a minute she pushed herself back to arm's length, looked Urd in the eye, and still smiling, gently shook her head once again.

Kami-sama spoke from where he'd been watching the exchange. "You might as well give up, Urd. People that love you won't always do what you want _because_ they love you, and her will is as strong as yours."

Urd sighed, shoulders slumping, then finally returned her Angel's smile with one of pure relief. "I'd be happier for your sake if you chose to accept Mara," she told her, "but I won't pretend that having you with me won't be a comfort."

World of Elegance's smile broadened, then she let go of Urd's shoulders, leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead, and spun around to once more withdraw into her mistress.

Urd pressed her hand to the bare flesh of her chest between her breasts, left bare by the typical plunging — not to say plummeting — neckline of her dress. Closing her eyes for a moment, she luxuriated in the sense of her Angel inside. Her link with all of human history might be gone, but her center wouldn't be left completely empty.

Opening her eyes again, she looked around, focused for a moment on Skuld — or more particularly the pocket into which her little sister was slipping the PDA she'd just reclaimed from Lind — then again on her parents and asked, "Are we done here? Because, no offense but with my and Mara's crash training starting tomorrow —" she cocked an eyebrow at Hild and especially Kami-sama "— I'd like to get our links set up to Skuld's bug and then spend the rest of the day with my co-mothers."

Her parents exchanged glances. Hild spoke up first. "I'd arranged with Urd to start her training as soon as Raven finished remembering the last of her previous life, but that was before we learned of Raven's plans, such as they were."

Kami-sama nodded his agreement. "And while Mara will need to be brought up to speed on her new Domain and the details on the role it plays as quickly as possible, a few days — or even weeks — shouldn't make that much of a difference." Turning back to Mara and Urd, he said, "You two keep an eye on your daughter until she's settled, then begin your training — all three of you. Lind, I'll pass the word that you're off the schedule." At the relieved looks the three sent him, he added, "None of you will be able to focus on anything else until she's safe anyway, not for long. You three jointly decide when you're ready to come back to work."

Urd stepped over to kiss him on the cheek, and had just turned to her co-mothers when an electronic tone sounded from Skuld's pocket. Instantly, her PDA was out of her pocket, the virtual keyboard and screen were out, and she was typing furiously.

"Whoa, something serious is going on," she said, eyes fixed on the charts and reports. "Spikes of fear and anger, frustration, concern, excitement ... not Raven, that's what she's picking up. She's concerned and ... excited? What's going on?"

"Well, Squirt, why don't we look and find out?" Urd commented dryly.

Skuld blushed. "Oh, right, got too focused on the data..." She touched a blinking button, and the holographic display she'd demonstrated earlier sprang up to show Raven standing in an alley peeking around the corner, the light dimmed to that of a nighttime city. Skuld frowned. "Nothing there to cause all the fuss..." She typed for a few seconds, and the display shifted to the middle of the room, expanded, and the point of view shifted in the direction that Raven was looking, lifted, and rotated to look down.

"Whoa, who are the extras?" Urd asked.

Lind frowned. "I don't recognize the girl tearing up the city, the green-skinned boy or the husky mechanical, but the black and yellow cape is Robin, Batman's sidekick. But I don't see his mentor anywhere."

Mara elbowed the Valkyrie in the side, though her gaze remained fixed on the display. "And who's Batman?" she asked.

"Vigilante, the best in the world — the drive of a Fury and the heart of a Valkyrie," Lind replied. "Skuld, why did you send Raven to Gotham City?"

"I didn't, I sent her to Jump City, on the west coast of the U.S.," the youngest Norn replied. After a few quick seconds of typing, she added, "And she's still there."

Lind's frown deepened. "Okay, so Robin's far from home and apparently alone. I wonder what hap —"

She fell silent as their daughter abruptly abandoned her bystander role.

/oOo\

_Dawn, the following morning:_

On the tiny island where the alien thugs that had come hunting their escaped slave, the alien princess Starfire, had planted the immense holographic projector with which they'd threatened the city, Raven stood watching the early morning light flood across Jump City as the sun rose over the hills to the east. The sunrise was only slightly dimmed by the smoke from the fires sparked by their fight first with Starfire and then with the slavers.

It had been quite a night — a night like Raven had never known but _Ranma_ had; full of misunderstandings, uneasy alliances, massive property damage, and the thrill of combat that she hadn't known in over fifteen years even if it was as faded ... unfocused ... as the rest of her emotions. For a time she had even been able to forget that she was going to destroy the entire world and kill everyone that lived on it. She wondered yet again what her Grandfather was thinking, insisting that she not be killed, or kill herself.

"Please, do I look ... nice?"

Raven turned at the sound of Starfire's voice. The fiery-haired, orange-skinned warrior princess's tone now sounded soft, gentle ... what Raven thought was probably her more natural tone rather than the rage and frustration had filled her voice when she had crash-landed in the city — that she had used to hide her bone-deep fear and despair. A fear and despair that had now faded into an uncertain hope. She had removed the armor she had been wearing, except for a neckguard and bracers around her forearms, and was now dressed in purple boots reaching up to mid-thigh, and a purple sleeveless top and miniskirt that left her midriff bare.

Behind Raven the boys instantly agreed that Starfire did indeed look 'nice', not to say drop dead kissably gorgeous. Raven was surprised to realize that she was adding her own hint of lust to the emotional atmosphere, mixing with Robin's, the half-man/half-machine Black teenager Cyborg's and the small, green-skinned, shapeshifting Beast Boy's. Not that Robin wasn't an attractive hunk, and didn't _that_ still feel odd? (An image of Rothgan's seemingly-diseased, sweat-shiny, tentacled bulk looming over her, the feel of the tentacles he used for arms crawling over her naked, muck-encrusted body flashed into her mind, causing her breath to hitch for a moment before she thrust the memory away — the one good thing about her broken mind was that ignoring those ugly flashbacks had become _much_ easier.)

When she was again aware of the world around her, Robin was speaking. "When you first suggested we team up, I said I work alone now," he was telling Beast Boy. "I think I've changed my mind. How would you all like to join me in a new team? Our own miniature Justice League right here in Jump City." His eyes swept across the other teens. They perhaps paused for a split-second on Raven and Starfire — not enough to be really noticeable, but his emotions might as well have been shouting. _He's actually worried about us, giving up his new lone wolf status for us,_ Raven thought. _That's rather sweet._

"Yeah? Nice idea, but where we gonna stay?" the bulky Cyborg asked (though muscular where he wasn't machine; not bouncing, undulating fat like Rothgan). "The Justice League has its base and planes and everything, and we've got what, the local pizza parlor?"

"Hey, dude, what's wrong with a pizza parlor?" Beast Boy demanded. "Vegetarian and tofu pizza is cool!"

Everyone stared at the shapeshifter for a moment, before Robin said, "Money won't be an issue, I ... have connections. I should be able to get us a place to stay while our headquarters is being built — right on this island, I think, close enough for easy access to the city while isolated enough to keep down the property damage and risk to innocent bystanders when enemies come calling. So who's with me?"

Starfire was the first to speak up. "I would be delighted to take part in such a marvelous adventure!" she enthused, eyes fixed on Robin ... and the orange of her cheeks turning slightly darker.

Robin's cheeks went a little pink as well, and he hastily looked at the others.

"Sure, I'm in!" Beast Boy almost shouted.

Cyborg shrugged. "Why not? Not like I have anything else to do, now."

Raven had turned away and was just gathering her energies for the flight to the mainland, when Robin asked, "And what about you, Raven?"

She paused. It was tempting, but ... "I'd better not," she said finally, voice barely audible. "If you knew what I was, you wouldn't want me around."

"I know enough," Robin instantly disagreed. "I know you involved yourself in a fight that wasn't yours, just because others needed help. I would be proud to fight beside you."

"Please, friend Raven, join us," Starfire added. "I would like to have a female friend in this new world."

Cyborg and Beast Boy added their own encouragement, but by then Raven wasn't listening, her thoughts turned inward. Sure, they'd learn what she was sooner or later and she'd be on her own again, but in the meantime ... she'd actually had fun that night, and while it wouldn't make any difference a few years down the line they'd saved lives — given people that much longer to enjoy life before the end. And after the emotional hell she'd been immersed in for the past year and the uneasiness of everyone that had noticed her as she'd walked about the city, Starfire's sweet uncertainty (_definitely_ not the berserker she'd pretended to be at first), Robin's calm certitude, Beast Boy's perky cheerfulness, even Cyborg's mixture of anger, despair and hope were soothing to her soul. _And it would make my mothers happy._

Finally, almost reluctantly, she turned back around. "All right, I'm in ... for now."

* * *

Wow, it's actually finally done, and was that a _long_ chapter, at least for me — my longest yet. And yeah, I know I skipped the whole fight between the nascent Teen Titans and the Gordanian slavers. I'm kinda two minds about that. On the one hand, there's the jump past the whole action sequence, and this way-too-long "epilogue" has been all drama/no action. On the other hand the action is a bit of a sideshow, since the major themes of the epilogue have been how Urd ends up where she does and how Raven ends up with the personality of the Raven of the Teen Titans, and since this _is_ the Raven of the Teen Titans it would essentially be a novelization of the cartoon. Originally I was going to have the story end where Raven involves herself in the first fight with Starfire, but some of the reviews at made clear not everyone has seen Teen Titans at all or read the comics, and I decided that not skipping to the end of the origin episode might leave them confused. And it gave me a chance to tweak a few things about the origin episode that I thought made it clear that it was the pilot episode and they changed a few things when they decided to shelve it till fifth season.

For the transference of Urd's Domain, the OMG! manga doesn't really make it clear how the Norns ended up the Norns, at least not so's I remember it. But what is fairly clear is that, however much Fujishima is dipping into Norse myth for inspiration, this is _not_ a polytheistic setup, and areas of expertise are the result of inclination and training, not birth as is typical in polytheisms. For example, Lind is a Valkyrie through personality, desire and training. In the latest OMG! book published (in the US, anyway, vol. 41), it was revealed that _Belldandy_, of all people, has successfully completed the training to be a Valkyrie even if the chances of her ever actually being one are slim to nil. So for the Norns, I'm going with the idea that each is an assigned Domain, like being a Valkyrie, but requires a _very_ high level of trust among the three, which is why in this case the three ended up being sisters. But they don't have to be.

For the episode title, I'd actually come up with a number of song titles to use: "The Pearl" by Emmylou Harris, "Serenity" by Godsmack, "You Learn" by Alanis Morissette, "Streets of Philadelphia" or "We Take Care of Our Own" by Bruce Springsteen, "Health to the Company" by Blackmore's Night, but in the end I settled on "Rocky Ground" from Bruce Springsteen's latest album. A number of videos are available on YouTube, though my favorite is the one uploaded by theilster.

A bit of bad news: I'm coming up on my summer vacation, and I have some co-workers taking theirs ahead of me. I'll try to have another chapter up before I head out (the next for "DarkAngel and Cherub"), but I make no promises. Which means my next episode may not be until the end of June or even early July.

Also, the sheer length of time it's taken me to finish this story has me rethinking my plans for the future. At this point, I'm going to run through my stories twice, and decide at that point if I'm going to focus on "DarkAngel and Cherub" until it's finished or run through my stories a few more times. For my future plans for "The Raven," after giving it all due consideration I decided that the sequel will deal with Trigon's arrival. Sure, for Raven it'll mostly be a novelization of the three-parter cartoons, but it'll also include what's going on with Asgard and Niflheim while all that's going on, and what Kami-sama is actually up to. I updated my poll on what my next story is going to be to match, I hope the four that voted for the original sequel to "The Raven" still agree. I still intend to get to Raven looking up Akane, but it's been pushed back a story arc. Also, while I'm marking this story "Complete" for now, when I do get around to the sequel I'm thinking of simply adding it to this story, and not starting a new story until the second sequel.

And thanks for all the great reviews!

**Paver83:** If I had planned for this "epilogue" to be this long from the beginning, it would be two stories. But I didn't, and if I yank the chapters and set them up as a second story now the chapters will lose their link with the reviews. I may modify the chapter titles with a "Pt. II" or something similar, though. And yes, Belldandy's reference to Akane as "her" could be indicative of her current sex, or simply because her sisters knew her as female. ^_~

**Skywiseskychan:** Yeah, as I said in I think my first author's note, I don't really think the afterlife works like this. I was simply playing around with how you could have a cooperative heaven and hell without actually modifying explicit OMG! canon, mixed in with reincarnation. One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that our modern mainstream conception of Satan/Lucifer/whatever being the one in charge of Hell is actually fairly recent, historically speaking. Go back far enough, and Satan becomes the one in charge of _this_ world, with Hell being under God's control. Certainly that's the portrayal in Dante's Inferno, where Satan is bound in chains in Hell's lowest level. And you're right, I don't actually _show_ anyone changing and moving on from Hell, though I do mention it a few times. That never became a real focus because Ranma ended up taking a different path.

Also, you're right again about the usual portrayal of the maiden, mother and crone and how that played out in OMG! (though the maiden is usually older than Skuld is in OMG!). But in the manga, you also have Skuld maturing and learning, so it works for the introduction of the three sister but not so well for the manga as a whole.


	20. Prodigal Daughter

I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi or Kosuke Fujishima, and certainly not anything owned by Warner Bros.

* * *

_Four years later:_

Pre-dawn, and the light coming through Raven's wide window slowly brightened. The raven-haired, gray-skinned girl winced, twisted in her sleep, then lifted one arm to block the light. She groaned, forced open sleep-encrusted eyes and froze in shock, gasping at the sight of glowing red glyphs running along her arm.

Instantly wide awake, she bolted out of bed and flew to her mirror, and found what she had feared just before her power lashed out and the mirror exploded. The same red glyphs ran down both arms and legs and circled her torso, glowing right through the skin-tight black leotard she used as both costume and bedwear, and down her bare legs. And her father's sigil glowed red on her forehead, centered underneath the red diamond-shaped bindi her Aunt Skuld had given her the day her guilt had led her to abandon Asgard and her mothers for Earth.

The day of the world's ending had arrived.

Her shoulders slumped as she closed her eyes, fighting to keep the piece of her shattered psyche that was Despair from taking over. For a moment she considered yet again trying to kill herself, but rejected the thought — she had broken her promise to her adopted grandfather and tried time and again the day after her last birthday, her eighteenth and only weeks past, when Slade had returned from the dead to first awaken the glyphs. But the powers she had inherited from her father had turned against her, bound her, shielded her, moved her to safety, moved and even destroyed threats, whatever was needed to keep her alive and well. No, self-destruction simply wasn't an option, and she didn't have the time to waste.

Turning from the mirror as her hooded cape floated over to draped itself across her shoulders, she walked over to one of her shelves and reached out to touch a crystal knickknack shaped like a racing motorcycle, sending a tiny pulse of power into it. The knickknack lit up with a pure, white light for a long minute before pulsing twice.

That done, she stepped to the center of her room and waved a hand, and the dark energy she commanded for all purposes but one washed out across her room, lifting the piles of books that she had read again and again as she'd futilely sought to find a way out, shifting them against the shelves lining her bedroom walls to leave the floor empty. With the space cleared, she floated over into the center of the room and shifted legs and arms into the lotus position. She closed her eyes as a circle of pure white light sprang up around her, and a split-second later was falling — and then flying — through the same fractal tube that had first delivered her to Earth.

Within seconds, much faster than her first return trip _two_ days after her last birthday, she was approaching the white fractal barricade that protected the Divine Realm from intrusion, then flashed through. She ignored the sensation of hostile, overpowering force awakening as it recognized her inheritance and straining to be unleashed, to obliterate her — thanks to the exception that Kami-sama had ordered be made for her that she'd learned of on that first return trip, she wouldn't be that lucky.

Then she spurted out of the same gate that she had used to leave four years earlier, spinning in the air and bringing herself to a halt, hanging in the air in front of the Gate's circular plane of multi-shaded white fractals.

"In a hurry, much?"

Raven turned in place to face the voice to find a young woman waiting, hair as raven-dark as Raven's own framing the blue hollow teardrops on forehead and cheeks, in a face as cute now as it had been when she had been a child. The coverall and T-shirt that the goddess had worn when she had seen Raven off four years before, and the much more feminine shimmering silk-like folds of a dress she'd worn the last time Raven had seen her several weeks before were absent, replaced by a tight bodysuit that radiated power to Raven's Sight. Still, there _was_ a smudge of oil along one side of her nose.

"I need to get back to my friends," Raven replied, and tried to force a smile as she dropped down onto the tiled circle in front her aunt-in-heart. As the last time she'd met Skuld several weeks earlier, she again squelched a spark of incongruous Pride at how close the two were in height, now — Raven had done some growing, over the past four years, and could almost look the goddess in the eye. _It doesn't matter, now_. "Hello, Aunt Skuld, as cute as ever."

Skuld mock-scowled. "Don't remind me," she growled, "I'm getting tired of the 'little sister' routine. One god I was hoping would ask me out actually patted me on the head!" She grinned at the laughter forced out of Raven, before sobering. Reluctantly, she asked, "Is today the day?"

Raven's laughter cut off. "Yes," she whispered, gaze dropping, distantly surprised when she realized that the sigils on arms and legs had vanished. _Not that Aunt Skuld needed to ask, not dressed like Mama Lind,_ she thought. She didn't know how the Norn of the Future had known, maybe her job title was all the answer she needed?

She shrugged the concern aside — she _was_ short on time. She asked, "Did you find anything useful?" Maybe ... but Skuld shook her head.

"No," she said regretfully, "nothing that can stop the Devourer. You aren't surprised, are you?"

Raven shook her head. "No, I'm not," she murmured. And she wasn't. She had found any number of tomes and mystical items hidden away in various bolt holes when she had returned to search the temple to Trigon that Slade had lured them to the second time he had sprung up, deep underneath where Jump City's first library had been built (which might have had something to do with the library's abandonment, now that she thought of it, swift enough that books were still on the shelves). As Skuld said, when she'd gathered up everything she could find and broken her self-imposed exile from Asgard a second time to deliver what she'd found to Skuld and asked her to check out the heaped-up pile of random loot, Raven hadn't _really_ expected a cult dedicated to bringing her father to the Earth to have a way to keep him out. Still ... "Did you find _anything_, anything at all?"

"Yes, I did," Skuld replied, "but I don't see how it can help you." Reaching into her still-favorite storage place when in battle dress (if for a somewhat different reason, now) — between her now obvious if not bounteous breasts — Skuld pulled out a small clothe pouch embroidered front and back with sigils. She opened it and dumped four black crystal rings into her palm. "Rings of protection, against the Devourer's arrival," she said, "whoever has one of these on her person when he arrives won't be locked in stone and turned into a life force battery."

"And that is supposed to be an improvement?" Raven asked, peering at the rings — the circles of crystal seemed to sing to her, her sisters in power. "When my father comes, Earth will become a barren wasteland. Anyone with these rings might be able to get water from rainfall, but that just means they'd die of starvation."

Skuld suppressed her wince at Raven's acknowledgment of her relationship with Trigon. Instead, she shrugged nonchalantly. "Who knows? The Devourer is a very nasty piece of work. Perhaps he views a lingering death on a dead world to be a suitable reward for helping him kill it."

"Yes, that sounds like him," Raven agreed absently as she gazed at the rings, feeling Hope and Love rising, fighting with Shame. Hope was the weakest of her emotion fragments, Love much stronger, but the two combined weren't strong enough to force Shame down. Abruptly turning away from her aunt, she stepped over to the edge of the gate's tiled circle, gazing into the grove of trees that surrounded it. She couldn't stop the world's end, but thanks to the rings she could save _a few_. But she'd need help to do it, and not just from Skuld.

Behind her, Skuld waited as the seconds ticked by, then finally sighed and stepped over to join the (much) younger girl. "When you visited me a few weeks ago, you didn't tell me that it was your second return visit," she said conversationally. "Father's not talking, as usual, but you wouldn't believe some of the wild rumors going around about it."

Raven chuckled mirthlessly. "If those rumors say that I actually attacked him and managed to tear up his office, they're right."

"What?!" Skuld shouted, turning to stare at her adopted niece. "In Father's name, _why_?"

Raven shrugged. "I tried to force him to kill me," she replied. "Wasted effort, of course, I never had a chance. He just let me throw him around, use _him_ to break up every piece of furniture and decoration he had until I tired." _And then sat down in the middle of the debris and held me until I cried myself out — just like five years ago_. The memory of that night rose in her mind: Kami-sama sitting on air, holding her as she'd sobbed out her fear of her own dreams, and the memories they would bring. And as well, she remembered what her grandfather had said about her mothers and their love — and Hope and Love triumphed as Determination joined them, forcing Shame back into the recesses of her mind that all her fragmented, personified emotions shared.

Straightening, Raven turned to a Skuld still stunned by what she'd just heard. "I'll need the rings. And ..." She hesitated, but could feel Love and Determination pushing her, demanding. " ... and I need to see my mothers," she finished.

/\

_A few minutes earlier:_

In the early predawn (the daily cycle of their piece of Asgard long since adjusted to match that of Jump City, since Raven had made that city her own), Mara lay in the bed she shared with Urd, her arms around her lover. She stared into the dark, counting Urd's breaths, as she had all night as seconds ticked away into minutes and minutes into hours. As she had every night since Raven's birthday — the day that Skuld had called to tell them that the time they'd all feared had come, that the runes needed to channel Raven's life into the portal for the Devourer had manifested, and for the monster to make the link his daughter shared with all that lived on Earth — to Gaea in all her glory — his own.

Since then there had been only one other report from the Norn of the Future, when Raven had returned to give Skuld her findings from the temple of the Devourer's now-dead cult. Urd had demanded that they all receive links to the bindi Skuld had given Raven when she left so that they could monitor Raven as well, but Mara and Lind had talked her out of it — they had originally decided to give up their own links because of how much of a distraction they'd proven, what with the Teen Titans' many fights, and would prove even more of a distraction now. And with the Devourer's coming at hand Lind and Urd, at least couldn't afford any distractions, not when they were preparing Hild's Furies and Kami-sama's Valkyrie for the battle to come. If Raven failed and the Devourer came, maybe — _maybe _— they could defeat him while he was still weak, if they hit hard and fast enough. But only if the wings of the Valkyries and Furies worked together, and over the past few weeks Lind and Urd had been hammering that need into their subordinates (occasionally literally) as they worked out joint plans and areas of responsibility.

Which was why Lind and Urd were the ones sleeping under a mild compulsion placed on them by their co-mother, while Mara lay sleepless hour after hour, night after night. True, as a goddess and a god/demon hybrid, at need they could have gone without any sleep at all since Skuld's first report and still been functional on the day of reckoning, at least so long as they kept any exercises of their power to a minimum. But they needed to be more than just functional, they needed to be at their best, while Mara — no fighter, not at the level of Lind and now Urd — didn't. So they slept, and she waited.

Then even as the predawn light slowly brightened a soft alarm chimed, the tune it played out letting her know that Skuld was finally calling again — finally, and much too soon.

Heart in her throat, Mara cancelled the sleep compulsion as she rolled over her lover and dashed to the bedroom's vidphone to hit the acceptance stud. The phone's hologram sprang to life to reveal Skuld in her battle-dress bodysuit rather than the typical grease- and oil-stained blouse. The youngest Norn promptly blushed beet-red and slapped a hand over her eyes, anddemanded, "Could you two put something on before answering your phone? Or at least use the audio-only?"

Mara glanced down at her nude body, then back over her shoulder to where an also-nude Urd was sitting up in bed, sheet pooled about her waist. Since Skuld's call on Raven's birthday, sex for the pair had gone from an occasional (though pleasant) pastime to a nightly comfort — both divine and demonic lacked the biological imperative behind mortal sex drives mandated by the need to replace each generation, but it still played a role in building and affirming the closest of relationships. And Mara and Urd had needed that affirmation and the comfort and temporary forgetfulness it brought _very_ badly. Also, the full-body skin-to-skin contact had helped Mara immeasurably, both during her nighttime vigils and carrying over into the days between. Personally, Mara didn't know how Lind was dealing with their daughter's situation without it.

Urd paled, but that was the only sign of her recognition of who was calling and what the reason for the call had to be. She rolled out of bed and snatched their discarded robes from the floor, handing Mara's to her before shrugging into her own. Mara quickly followed suit. "It's safe to look, sorry," she apologized.

Skuld peeked through her fingers, then dropped her hand with a sigh of relief, frowning quellingly at Urd's soft chuckle. Her big sister seemed to have decided that Skuld was too much of a prude (somehow completely missing her little sister's attempt to make herself more attractive without appearing to 'come on' to anyone) and was determined to 'loosen her up' a bit, and Skuld was getting tired of it. But she had more important concerns than her sister's teasing, so she ignored Urd's delight in her embarrassment. "It's time," she announced simply.

Urd's chuckling instantly cut off. Now all business, she asked, "The runes have activated?" Skuld nodded, and Urd sighed as Mara's hand latched onto her own. "Has she contacted you yet?"

"No, but —" Skuld broke off as she glanced to the side. "Yes," she continued, "there's her signal."

"Good, we'll leave you to the meeting, then, while we get our own plans activated." Urd reached for the 'off' stud, then hesitated. Just as Skuld was reaching for her own stud, she hurriedly asked, "Skuld, could you ask her to visit us, before she goes back?"

Skuld paused, then nodded sympathetically. "Of course," she agreed, before the screen vanished.

"Today's the day?"

The lovers turned to find their purple-haired co-mother standing in the doorway, already wearing her own white blue-trimmed battle suit. "Yes," Urd answered.

Lind nodded. "Get cleaned up and dressed, I'll send the alert to Kami-sama and Hild, and the Valkyries and Furies' current watch officers," she said, and turned to race down the hall even as Urd and Mara agreed.

/\

The two had finished their rushed ablutions and Urd was helping Mara with the last fastenings of her red and gold battle suit with its ubiquitous twin streamers (instantaneous cleaning and dressing one more unnecessary use of power perhaps needed later), when they heard the visitor's chime sound, from the main entrance. The goddess and hybrid rushed for the foyer, slip-sliding and bouncing off walls in their haste, arriving just as Lind slid open the door to reveal Skuld ... and in front of her, their daughter.

The gray-hued girl had her hood draped down her back and her cape slung back over her shoulders to reveal the usual leotard ... no ankle-boots, no gold chain-and-flame-red jewel-belt, no wrist-guards. Raven's face was invisible as she stared at the step into the house, but Mara could see the tremors running through their daughter's body, and ribbons of dark energy were undulating around her.

Raven jolted slightly as Skuld gently pushed one shoulder. "Go on," the Norn encouraged, and Raven took a stumbling step across the threshold before looking up, violet shoulder-length hair framing wet violet eyes. She opened her mouth only to struggle silently with herself for a long moment, before abruptly wailing, "Momma, I'm sorry!"

They never learned which mother she meant or just what she was sorry for — leaving (running away, to call it by its right name) when they needed her as much as she needed them, the four years of silence that followed when she could have returned at any time, the world's destruction she was about to help bring about, any or all of them. Before she could continue Lind pulled her close, Mara and Urd hugging them both. Raven melted into the embrace, sobbing as her Momma Lind pulled her face down to her shoulder and Mommas Urd and Mara gently rubbed her back and murmured encouragement and comfort.

Finally, Raven's tears eased off and she sighed and straightened, shrugging off the three-way embrace with a watery, apologetic smile. Behind them Mara heard a sigh of relief, and the four turned to find Skuld slumping and her arm dropping to her sides, face beaded with sweat, as the last signs of the bubble of energy she'd encased them in faded away — and the last hints of Raven's dark energy with it. There were some scorch marks on the walls, a window was missing most of its glass and a side table and chair were so much kindling, but their home still stood.

'Nice going, little sis, thanks for making sure we still have a house," Urd said wryly, and her co-mothers laughed softly at Raven's furious blush.

Raven hastily turned away from Skuld and looked over her mothers and froze, eyes widening. Almost against her will, she reached up to trace one of the red triangles on Urd's cheek, looked over at the blue triangles and slash marks on Mara's face — the evidence of her two mothers' change of allegiance. "What ... when ... how ... ?" she stammered, new ribbons of dark energy beginning to flicker around her.

Lind commanded, "Easy, control!" and watched sternly as Raven closed her eyes took a deep breath, and the fresh energy ribbons faded away. "Better," Lind said when Raven again opened her eyes, and Mara reached up to trace her own blue cheek 'tattoos', smiling.

"Just after you left," Mara said, "say hello to the new Norn of the Past."

"Norn of —" Raven broke off and looked over at her Mamma Urd.

"The newest commander of Niffleheim's Furies," Urd said, grinning at Raven's shock.

"Because ... because of me?" Raven managed to ask, voice barely audible.

"Yes," Urd said, face turning grim, "because of you ... because of what Genma and Rothgan did to you. Because I needed to help make them — make others like them — _pay_ for their sins." She paused and took a deep breath, forcing a gentle smile, before continuing, "But as wonderful as it is to have you here again, we're running short of time. What do you need from us? You _do_ need something from us, don't you?" Raven stiffened for a moment before her shoulders slumped and she nodded sharply, her eyes falling. Urd reached out to cup her chin and tilt her head back up. "It's not your fault," she said softly. "Blame the powers you inherited from the Devourer, blame the need for control _we_ taught you — emotionally charged confrontations aren't exactly conducive to keeping iron control of your emotional state. Your memories of your life as Ranma, what Genma did to you, can't have helped. It's not your fault. Now, what can we do for you?"

Raven looked desperately at her other mothers, and took heart at Mamma Mara's encouraging smile and Mamma Lind's calm nod of acceptance. The Valkyrie seemed her normal stoic self, now that the hugfest was over, but to anyone that knew her — and Raven did, even after four years — she practically glowed with happiness at their daughter's return. "It's good to have you home, whatever the reason for your return, however short it might be," she said quietly. "How can we help?"

Raven turned to Skuld. "The rings?"

Skuld again pulled the bag out from between her breasts (scowling at her big sister's lifted eyebrow), and quickly explained the rings' purpose as she handed it to Raven. When she finished, Raven took over.

"I'm going to give these to the other Titans, so they'll be protected from Father's arrival," she said. "When ... when I'm gone, and Father has come, I want you to rescue them, to give them a home here in Asgard as long as they need it. Can you do that?"

Her mothers exchanged glances. What their daughter was requesting broke all kinds of rules — the only reason Belldandy was going to be able to save her husband and children was because they were bound to her by marriage and blood. But then Urd nodded. "Yes, we can. If need be I can find a place for them in Niffleheim, Mother won't mind."

Raven's eyebrow rose at Urd's reference to Hild — it was the first time she could remember her mother using that label for _her_ mother — but let it pass, one more thing she would never learn the story behind. She was running out of time, and had one last thing to do before she returned to Titan's Tower. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Is my mirror still in my meditation room?"

Urd shook her head. "No, we moved it to your bedroom," she replied as she and her co-mothers stepped to the side.

/\

Raven sat crosslegged on her bed and stared at the mirror her grandfather had given her so many years before, watching as her sister — well, _sort of_ her sister, there wasn't any genetic relationship anymore but would have been if she'd still been Ranma — tinkered on a motorcycle, half the engine spread on the concrete around her. In the five years since Raven has last used the mirror her little sister had done a lot of growing up, and now she filled out her blouse and leather pants nicely. Raven still found it hard to believe that Nodoka had approved — though considering how short her sister's platinum blond hair was cut, not even shoulder-length, and the leather jacket she was wearing, apparently this time _Ranma's_ mother had no problem with her daughter being less than womanly.

"Well, maybe Mom learned something," Raven murmured. Not that it was going to matter once her father came, whatever her grandfather said about the souls sleeping until life rose again to provide bodies for them to be born into, and taking their current life experiences with them — no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't take that long a view, not in her heart where it mattered.

Still, she was putting off who she _really_ wanted to check on, and she didn't have time. She opened her mouth, then froze as a new girl walked into view, stopping next to Ranma's sister and saying something (at least, so the way her lips moved indicated — the mirror didn't come with sound).

Even though she was dressed in a school uniform, the only word to describe the girl was 'elegant' — she exuded grace with every move she made, and her light green hair gave her an exotic beauty that took Raven's breath away, as much or more than Aqualad ever had. Raven was suddenly acutely aware that she wanted to _live_. Yes, the baby that Raven had left with Nabiki and Kasumi to raise had turned out very well, indeed. _It's not fair!_ she wailed to herself, and seemed to hear a familiar snort.

_What gave ya the idea that life's fair?_ Ranma's voice seemed to echo mockingly from her past life, and she had to smile wryly.

_Nothing, I suppose,_ she thought back. She didn't have time for an angstfest, and since she had already briefly looked in on Ku Lon (she could still remember her shock when she remembered Ranma's first encounter with the 'old ghoul', and realized who had been living with Nodoka and the Tendos all those years), as well as Kasumi, Nabiki and Nodoka, she had one last person to check in on. "Show me Akane!" she commanded. The view in the mirror vanished into the familiar glowing mists, then cleared to reveal her former fiancée, seventeen years old, the raven-haired girl dressed in T-shirt and shorts. She was lying on her stomach on a bed, propped up on her arms with a school textbook open in front of her.

Raven lifted up from her bed and drifted over to the mirror, and reached out to touch its glass over the oblivious girl. The reincarnation of the angry, sweet, distrusting, supportive, spiteful, friendly girl whose strike at Ranma's back had set up the redhead for her murder — and who had then, when her attempt to kill herself failed, had trained for a kamikaze run on Niffleheim to rescue the spirit of the girl she'd helped kill and, when Raven came to her, tried to guarantee her friend's freedom at the price of her own life. As always since she had remembered Ranma's time with that damaged girl-child she couldn't watch her without a storm of conflicting emotions and when one of a pair of crystal flower vases on the dresser beside the mirror exploded she hastily cleared the image. It had been so easy in the heat of the moment to tell Akane she loved her, to promise to reawaken her memories — to finally work things out between them, friends or lovers. Now, it was one more broken promise. "I'm getting as bad as Genma. I'm sorry, Tomboy," she whispered.

"Forget it, Raven, you couldn't be as bad as that waste of a life if you tried. It isn't in your nature."

As the second flower vase exploded, Raven continued to stare at her reflection for a long moment, fighting the urge to tell her Aunt Skuld exactly what her _nature_ was. But however true it might be, it wasn't what the goddess needed to hear — and it wasn't as if it would matter in the end. When she again had herself under control, she turned to the door and forced a smile for the youngest Norn. "Let me say goodbye to my mothers, and you can send me back."

* * *

So _The Raven _continues! I'm not sure how large this story arc will be. I'm guessing novella-length, but could be wrong — probably am, really, seeing how my stories tend to expand, often extensively. Any road, this arc will cover the three-episode finale of Teen Titans Season Four, _The End_.

And yes, I know this chapter is pretty angsty. Kinda hard to avoid it, it's laying the foundations and Raven's a mess.

The chapter title comes from (in my opinion) possibly the finest short-short ever told in human history, the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

So on to _Chained World 02_!


End file.
